


The Skype Dates

by tiptoe39



Series: The Skype Dates 'verse [1]
Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Fluff, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Not Beta Read, Skype, Sorry Not Sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-18
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-06-09 07:26:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 32
Words: 73,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6895426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tiptoe39/pseuds/tiptoe39
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the Can't Hardly Wait challenge, I present to you: my on-the-fly-written account of Bitty and Jack's Skype conversations between May and July. It starts modestly and gets deeper & more heated as it goes on.</p><p>Note: This was written as part of a challenge where I wrote and posted a chapter "live" nearly every day, so it will read much differently to you than a planned-out, carefully edited fic. I hope you will enjoy it nonetheless.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Last year, this felt different.  
  
Bitty remembers stepping into the house after long hours on the plane at the end of his freshman year. As he crossed the threshold into the kitchen, the atmosphere of the house rose up to wrap around him like an old, comfortable blanket. The sights and smells of home, of familiarity and childhood. He missed his friends, but he was so glad to be there.  
  
This year, it's all different. This year, it's like a dream.  
  
He's carrying his duffel on his shoulder, and the weight of it makes his shoulder ache. That sensation alone is real to him. Everything else feels secondary, like he's experiencing it from underwater. Nothing has felt real all day. Not since that moment.  
  
His father greets him, a smile curling under his mustache but with distant eyes. It's a cursory greeting at best. For once, Bitty is glad it's not more than that. He mumbles something about being tired, and heads up the stairs to his room.  
  
Once there, he lays down his bag on the floor. His shoulder aches with the effort, and he rolls it back and forth a few times, trying to relax the muscles. He retrieves his stuffed animal from his bag and sets it down on the bed in the place of honor right at the foot of the pillows. Then he sits down himself, back to the wall. And stares, and thinks.  
  
Did today happen?  
  
How was he in Samwell, Massachusetts, this morning? How is he in Madison tonight? How was it that this morning, he was still unkissed?  
  
How had, this morning, he been sure that today was going to be the worst day of his life?  
  
His thumbs twitch. He reaches for his phone, fishes it out of his pocket. It's impossibly light between his thumb and forefinger. Out of reflex more than interest, he presses the home button, then swipes up to unlock his phone.  
  
Two unread messages.  
  
**Jack:** hey  
**Jack:** hey :)  
  
Bitty stares.  
  
He should say something. He should answer. The messages are from hours ago. One from the early afternoon, when Bitty had been on the tarmac; another from later, when he was airborne.  
  
He keeps staring at the screen.  
  
"Hey." That's all he had to say. Well, of course that's all he had to say. This is Jack, after all. He doesn't text novels the way some of the guys do.  
  
But still. "Hey"? As though nothing has changed? As though Jack is still... as though he never...  
  
(Jack's lips warm on his, Jack's hands on his arms drawing him close, Bitty clutching this very phone in one hand as he trembled and was kissed and kissed and could barely think to kiss back, to say anything beyond "Oh" and "Okay," and then Jack gone again, leaving kisses burning on Bitty's lips and shudders wracking his body...)  
  
"Hey," he types. Gulping, he hits "send."  
  
There's no immediate response.  
  
Bitty sits back against his wall and sighs. Maybe he imagined it after all. Maybe none of it was real. He feels the dreamlike sensation start to wane, and in its wake comes a deflating disappointment. What was he thinking? Life wouldn't be that kind to him. Bitty has so much to be grateful for, he knows that. He can't complain. Still, for a moment he'd thought...  
  
His phone chirps.  
  
(Even his phone's chirping him. The thought flies by, an errant, pointless joke.)  
  
**Jack:** is now good  
  
Bitty stares. He doesn't understand.  
  
He types. "good for what?"  
  
The answer is an incoming Skype call.  
  
Bitty's heart bursts from its cage and starts rocketing wildly all around his chest. "Oh, God," he mumbles. He runs to his door. Closes it. Runs back to the bed. Picks up his phone. Stares at it more. Licks his lips. Hovers, his finger a millimeter from the button.  
  
Picks up.  
  
Jack's face is too close to the screen. Bitty can only see his nose. He laughs. "Jack, back up, I can't see you."  
  
"Oh." Jack adjusts. There are his eyes and mouth. The rest of him is cut off, but it's good enough. "Better?"  
  
"How did you manage to Skype me last summer?" Bitty teases. "Did you forget how?"  
  
"I didn't forget." That scowl. Bitty is laughing again. "You don't have to laugh. I don't live on the Internet like you do."  
  
"I'm sorry, but... honestly!" Another peal of laughter, and then Bitty very abruptly remembers that he should be nervous as hell. Because Jack... today Jack... oh, but that angry look! Heaven help this boy.  
  
Jack doesn't seem to register that Bitty is laughing at him. "Bittle. Is now a good time to talk?"  
  
"Hm? Yeah, oh, yeah, it's fine." Bitty can feel the anxious nerves start to fire up, even with the amusement still front and center.  
  
"I thought we should probably talk," Jack says. "Since we didn't get a chance to."  
  
"Yeah." Bitty is sobering up quickly now. "Yeah, I guess we should, um..."  
  
"Bittle," Jack starts.  
  
"Jack," Bitty says at the same time.  
  
They stare and blink. Bitty fights the urge to laugh again. He can't help it. With Jack's face in front of him, like they're right there in the same room, all the tension seems to melt away.  
  
"Jack," Bitty repeats. "Did... Did today really happen? I mean, did you really..."  
  
"Yeah." There's a low smokiness to Jack's voice then that sends goosebumps rippling up Bitty's arms. "Yeah, I did."  
  
"And did I really...? I mean, of course I did,  was there, but, gosh, I don't know..." He's babbling. Get to the point, Bitty. Get to the damn point. "What happens now?"  
  
"I guess we date." Like it's the most obvious thing in the world.  
  
"Okay, hold up for just a second." Bitty looks critically at the phone. "First of all, you're going to be a professional hockey player. And I'm... not a girl, in case you didn't notice."  
  
A quirk of Jack's lips. "I noticed."  
  
"So we can't just... _date_. I mean... And we're like seventeen states apart right now. How do we date, exactly?"  
  
"Like this." Jack's deadpan. "How was your flight?"  
  
"Like this-- you mean-- are we dating over Skype?"  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"But.. Skype dates? Really?" It's ridiculous, the whole thing is ridiculous, but Jack has a point. How else can they do this? And most of dating is conversation anyway... Okay, that's missing some significant elements but--  
  
Jack is silent, apparently enjoying watching Bitty connect the dots in his head, if his smile is any indication. At last he says, "Is it okay?"  
  
"What?" Bitty tries to pull his head out of.. wherever it's gone to. "Well, now, of course it's _okay,_ that's not the question. The question is..."  
  
"Bittle."  
  
Bitty blushes. "You called me Bitty today."  
  
"I did." Jack nods. "Was it okay?"  
  
"Calling me Bitty?"  
  
"Everything." Oh, gosh, is that a little flush in Jack's cheeks? "I know I didn't ask first, but..."  
  
"Jack." Bitty draws the phone a little closer. Next time he's doing this on his tablet. This screen is much too small. "It was okay. It was ... better than okay."  
  
"Good." There's real relief in Jack's voice. "I was glad you were there. I was glad to see you one more time before I had to go."  
  
"So you..." Bitty's lips feel awkward and swollen, as though Jack's kissed him just now. "You like me, Jack? Like _that,_ you like me?"  
  
"Yes." There's that roughness in Jack's tone again. His eyes are wide and clear. "Yes, Bittle... Bitty. I like you a lot."  
  
Bitty's heart tries to fly out of his mouth and he has to swallow it down again. "I ... I like you too, Jack. I have for a while. I just, I never thought..."  
  
"If I were there right now," Jack begins.  
  
"Dicky! Dicky, are you all right in there?"  
  
His mother's voice, and three sharp raps on his door. Bitty jumps. "Oh! Mama, yes, I'm just Skyping with.. a friend."  
  
"Well, don't stay in there all night. Your father and I have missed having you at the dinner table!"

And thank God, she walks down the hall, her shoes making clipped sounds against the hardwood. Bitty takes in a few calming breaths. "Oh, Lord," he murmurs. "This is going to kill me, isn't it?"  
  
"Are you all right?" Jack's brow is creased. Bitty wishes he could reach through the screen and smooth it down.  
  
"I'm fine. But Lord,  Jack. We are going to have to make these 'dates' a little later at night."  
  
"You have to go?"  
  
Bitty lobs him a rueful smile. "Kind of. It's dinnertime. But I can call you back right after dinner? If that's okay with you."  
  
Jack turns his head, looking at something Bitty can't see. "Hm," he says. "It's been a long day. I might want to get some sleep."  
  
"Oh." Bitty feels foolish. "Um..."  
  
"But tomorrow we could talk a little later," Jack goes on. "What about 8?"  
  
A rush of relief cools Bitty's racing heart. Jack wants to talk to him again. Bitty doesn't know why that's such a surprise, but it is. "Can we make it 8:30?"  
  
"8:30 it is. I'll call you."  
  
"Hey, Jack?"  
  
"Hm?"  
  
"You were saying. If you were here right now... what would you do?"  
  
Jack leans in toward the screen. Bitty follows suit, as though Jack's going to whisper the answer.  
  
A smile flickers across Jack's face. "I'll tell you tomorrow," he says. And the screen goes blank.  
  
Bitty sits there, red-faced, staring at his phone screen, for a good two full minutes.  
  
Jack likes him. "A _lot_." He said so.  
  
And he kissed him. And he wants to Skype date. And if he were here right now...  
  
It takes his mother's shouted "Dicky!" and the smell of barbecued chicken, wafting up from the kitchen, to spur him into action. He gets up and heads downstairs for dinner, feeling lighter than air. Tomorrow night can't come soon enough.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> May 19.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just so y'all know - I'm flying completely by the seat of my pants on this. I have a couple notes sketched out of things I want to cover, but absolutely zero plan! But YOLO, right? I hope you enjoy this chapter.

This day. How does Bitty get through this day?

Well, he goes through it like normal, like he would any day. Talking with Mama and deciding what to bake next and going to the grocery store and texting back and forth with the boys. Like usual. Like every day. That's not the problem.

The problem is, how does he think of anything but Jack?

Breakfast is pancakes, but Jack kissed him yesterday. Mama says there's something brewing on the jam front, but Jack likes him. He's going to make apple tarts, and he's buying fresh red apples, but Jack wants to Skype-date him. Ransom's complaining about Holster's relatives, but Jack spoke to him in that low sweet voice and promised to tell him something tonight, and why isn't it tonight yet?

"Dicky, you're red as that apple," his mother says, and Bitty realizes he's been holding it up like Hamlet with his skull, staring out the kitchen window without moving.

"Oh! Sorry, Mama. I was just thinking."

"Mm-hm." Mama crosses the kitchen to put away a dish from the dishwasher, but Bitty can feel her eyes on him the whole way. "I suppose I know what you're thinking about," she coos, and Bitty jumps.

"You do?"

"Oh, I know that face. She must be very pretty."

It's like being doused with cold water. Bitty pales. "Mama..."

"I won't pry! It's your life." She closes the cabinet. "But I hope we can meet her someday."

"It's... it's not like that," Bitty says, and it feels like a knife-stab to the heart to say it. Because it's  _ just _ like that, everything but the pronoun, and if it were only a girl he knows he'd want to tell his mother everything, share every last detail about kisses in sunlight and late-night calls and this feeling like his heart's blossoming wide and bright. But he can't, he can't tell her  _ anything, _ and it hurts. "I was just thinking about something that happened at graduation. It's not..."

"Mm-hm," she hums, clearly not convinced, and returns to the dishwasher to sort out the silverware. Bitty's both crushed and glad that she leaves it at that.

The apple tarts turn out nice, if a little too crisp around the corners, but Bitty's mood has taken a sour downturn. He brings a tart to his room after dinner and pokes at the brown bits, dissatisfied. He should have paid more attention. But nothing was the same after that conversation, and late in the afternoon the boys started texting like mad and he kept checking his phone, hoping it was Jack. It never was. Bitty even sent him a few texts, super casual, but there was no response. Maybe Jack won't even call him tonight.

He's all set to just eat his apple tart and sulk in silence when the call comes through.

Bitty scrambles to swallow his last bite and quickly props his tablet up on its holder. He hopes he doesn't have crumbs on his face as he answers, all set to bitch at Jack about where he's been all day.

The words slide away the minute he sees Jack's face. He looks  _ wrecked _ . There are bags under his eyes, and his face is gaunt and long, like he's seen hell. Bitty's hands fly to his mouth. "Oh, honey," he murmurs without thinking.

"Hey, Bittle." Jack manages a wan smile.

"You look awful."

"Is that how you greet a guy on the second date?"

Bitty frowns. "You know what I mean!"

Jack groans and reaches up to massage one shoulder with the opposite hand. "Today was really long," he says. "I was at the arena at 5 a.m. to get my locker and store all my gear."

"No wonder you wanted to go to sleep last night! Boy, they didn't let you rest for even a day." Bitty's bubbling over with worry. "Do you want to just go rest for tonight? You don't have to talk to me, I mean,  I'm happy to hear from you, but..."

"Bittle. No." That smile, however weary, lifts Bitty's spirits. "I've been looking forward to this all day. It's what got me through."

"Oh." Bitty flushes so hard he can feel it. He lifts a hand to his hot cheek. "Oh. Um. Okay, then."

Jack's just gazing at him now, not saying anything, and now Bitty can't think of a single thing to say, either. He looks around, avoids Jack's eyes, bites his lip and tries to make his brain work.

"So I got on the ice with some of the team this morning," Jack says.

Oh. Oh, good. Who would have thought Jack would be the one to propel the conversation forward, but thank goodness he did. Bitty snaps back to reality. "Tell me about them," he says.

This switches Jack on like a lightbulb. For a good fifteen minutes, he goes on about the morning practice, and how most of the vets had already headed out of town for summer vacation. There's one other rookie who signed along with Jack, a bunch of young players who've been in the league less than five years, and a handful of coaches. Jack spouts off their names as though he's known them all for ages. Bitty can't keep track. He'll have to start memorizing the Falconers roster like he would dates for a history exam.

As Jack rambles on (and Lord, it is fun to watch him ramble on), Bitty watches his face. As tired as he is, he's still glowing, excited as he talks about a warmup he wished he'd used on the guys at school, about a meeting with George ("You remember George?") about some of the media training they're going to put him through, and about his first trip to the grocery store near his new apartment ("I thought you'd want to hear about that"). Bitty had dreaded graduation for the life that was ending, but he can't help but be happy for Jack. Jack, who's starting his new, dream life.

Jack, who somehow still wants Bitty to be a part of it.

"How's your mother?" Jack asks abruptly. "What's it like to be back at home?"

Bitty pauses, trying to re-orient his brain out of A Day In the Life of Jack Zimmermann mode. "It's okay," he says, shrugging. "Nothing nearly as exciting as yours. To tell the truth, I really haven't done much of anything yet. I have a whole month until camp starts, so until then I supposed it's gonna be non-stop baking with Mama and not much else."

"You're going to summer camp?"

Jack's perplexed frown makes Bitty laugh. "As a  _ counselor _ . Lord! I'm too old to be a camper!"

The look of slow understanding that comes across Jack's face is as comical as the frown. "Oh. Yes, that makes more sense."

Bitty tries to hold back his laughter. Jack's every expression makes him ridiculously happy. "Anyway, it doesn't start until mid-June, after the kids are out of school. But I'm looking forward to it! I bet my kids have grown a bunch. Well, they won't be my kids anymore. They're going into fourth grade, and I always get the third-graders. But once they're my kids, they're always my kids."

"What do you do with them?"

Bitty tilts his head to the side. "Haven't you ever been to summer camp?"

"Training camps," Jack says.

"That's not the same thing." Bitty has no idea how to explain summer camp to someone who's never been. No words could really explain the feeling of it, the freewheeling spirit in the air, the daily drive to get out and do everything under the sun before time runs out and you’re back at boring old home again. "Our summer camp is fantastic. It's by a big old mucky lake and everything. There's sports and arts and crafts and cookouts with roasted marshmallows and campfire songs. Oh, and nature walks where somebody always gets poison ivy. And field trips to the local fair, where somebody always throws up on a ride."

"And that's fun?"

"Of course it's fun! Someone always throws up at a kegster, too, and they're fun!"

Jack frowns.

Oh. That's right. Jack... didn't have a good time at his last kegster.

Suddenly Bitty's hit with all the nerves in the world. This is only their second date. Sure, Jack kissed him, he likes him, but... but it's early. Bitty could still get this all wrong. He could talk too much, or about things that Jack doesn't want to talk about, and Jack could get that look on his face and decide it was all a big mistake...

"Bittle."

Bitty inhales sharply. "Hm?"

The frown is gone. Jack's expression is soft. "What are you going to bake?"

"Um." What  _ was  _ he going to bake? All those plans have been swept away under a flood of anxieties. He struggles to get them back again.

"More pie?" Jack prods him gently.

"No." Oh, that's right. He remembers now. "Um, I was actually thinking of making crullers. Cinnamon crullers? I found the recipe on Pinterest. I've actually never made crullers! But they looked so delicious in the photos. Oh, and there's this little honey cake recipe I found. I know, cake is the opposite of pie, right? But they're cute little cakes, and they'd be so good to give to my aunts when they come over, and--" Oh gosh, he's babbling again. Why is this happening? Why can he say either not enough or too much, and never anything in the middle?

"I miss your baking."

Oh. Oh, dear. "You do?"

Jack nods. "I wouldn't mind a slice of pie right now."

"I'll send you a pie!" Bitty grabs his tablet with both hands. "Jack, I will make you a pie tomorrow. You like the maple crust, right? I'll make it and I'll get a cooler bag for it and bring it to the post office."

This gets a laugh from Jack. "Bittle, calm down. I probably couldn't eat it anyway. There's a diet."

"A diet?" Bitty's lip curls.

"I'm meeting with the nutritionist tomorrow, but I can pretty much guarantee there's no pie in the diet."

"No pie? Not even one slice?" That seems too cruel to be real.

"No. But it wouldn't be the same, anyway. I, ah--" What in the world is that smile on Jack's face? What does that mean? "I like it better when I can see you baking it. And smell it, you know, as it's cooling. I miss that part."

"I-- *Jack." There aren't words for the thing Bitty's heart does in that moment. Not a single word.

"By the way, I'm sorry I didn't answer your texts today," Jack says. "I was so busy today. But I saw them. Thank you for thinking about me."

Bitty's speechless. Dimly, in the back of his mind, he remembers he was going to complain at Jack for not answering. So much for that. Jack saw his texts, and he appreciated them. Bitty’s just so glad. Relieved and glad.

“Jack,” he starts, “this-- this is a date, right? We’re having a date?”

Jack’s smile nearly gives him a heart attack. “Yes, Bittle. We’re on a date.”

“Then--” Bitty wrings his hands. “Then I think you ought to know, I’ve never done this before. I’ve never been … I’m new to all of this, and I don’t want to do it wrong. I don’t want to mess it up. I don’t want to be too -- too much, or too little, or -- Lord!” A thousand hummingbirds are beating in his stomach and chest. He swallows, trying to keep them down. “I’m so nervous. I don’t know what to say.”

“Bittle. Bittle, calm down.”  The voice of the captain, coaching him through a check. It’s become a trusted voice, and Bitty listens, trying to gulp in air, trying to let the nerves pass through him and drain away. He takes a few breaths.

“I’m sorry,” he manages. “I just-- I knew how to be around my friend, Jack. But the guy I’m dating? How do I talk to him?”

“Just like this,” Jack tells him. “Bittle, it’s still me. We can just talk. The same way we always do.”

“But it’s  _ not _ the same. If we were back at school -- if we were in the same room, it wouldn’t be the same, would it? We wouldn’t be just  _ talking _ .”

Bitty doesn’t mean to imply anything, but the minute the red touches Jack’s cheeks, he knows how it sounded. He’s about to protest when a little smile comes to Jack’s face. “Maybe not  _ just _ talking,” he admits. 

Seeing the color in Jack’s cheeks makes Bitty feel kind of bold.  “Jack,” he starts carefully. “Last night you said… you started to say that if you were here with me, you’d do something. A--and you said you’d tell me tomorrow.”

Jack’s still smiling. Even through the screen, his gaze feels intense on Bitty’s face. “I did. “

“So… it’s tomorrow,” Bitty offers.

“Bitty.” Oh god it feels so different when Jack calls him Bitty, so  _ exciting _ . “If  _ you  _ were here with  _ me  _ right now, what would you do?”

Bitty pouts. “Oh, come on now, that’s not fair.”

“But just for a minute. Imagine we’re talking like this. You’re telling me about summer camp. What would you do next?”

“That’s absolutely not fair, Mr. Zimmermann, I’m not--” But the images assault him anyway, one by one. If Jack were looking at him with that smile in his eyes, if his face were so close Bitty could touch -- if it would only take one motion and they’d be hand in hand --

“I suppose... “ Bitty hunches his shoulders forward like he’s trying to curl into a shell. “I suppose I might kiss you.”  _ Oh God, I said it. _ All the blood is in his face now. It’s stiflingly hot.

And Jack’s not saying anything. Jack’s just sitting there, watching him turn red, and smiling. 

Smiling. Jack’s smiling.

“Y-your turn,” Bitty prods him shyly. “If you were here with me, what would you do?”

Jack’s voice is very quiet. “I suppose I might kiss you, too.”

All the blood drops southward. Bitty gulps. And then he grins. And then there’s silence, the two of them looking at each other, smiling at each other. Both thinking of a kiss. It’s… it’s the most  _ intense _ thing Bitty’s ever felt. His fingers are tingling.

Jack breaks the silence. "Can I call you again tomorrow? Same time?"

" _ Yes _ ," before Jack's even finished talking, "of course, Jack, call me."

“I don’t want to be a pain in the ass,” Jack says. “But if you don’t mind--”

“ _ Of course I don’t mind Jack  _ **_call me_ ** _. _ ” Bitty might have to reach through the screen and shake Jack in another minute. “I mean, that’s like asking me on another date, isn’t it? I’m not gonna say no to a date with you.”

“Even if they’re just talking?” Jack is teasing him now.

“Even if they are.” Bitty has the thought and says it all in one moment. “But it’d be nice if they weren’t.  _ Just _ talking.”

Jack’s eyes are so wide and dark, Bitty could fall into them and get lost. “I think so too.”

A few more fumbles back and forth, and they say breathless goodnights. When the call ends, Bitty puts a hand over his heart and sighs out what feels like a year’s worth of air. This boy is going to be the death of him.

But his heart is humming with joy and possibility as he goes down the hall to the bathroom to brush his teeth before bed. Maybe he looks in the mirror for a minute or two while he’s in there, just remembering that low, warm voice, watching his reflection flush and smile. And maybe, just maybe, when he goes to bed, Bitty closes his eyes and pauses before lying down, leaning into an imaginary kiss goodnight.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> May 20

It’s not far into their third call -- or their third Skype-date, as Bitty thinks of it -- when Bitty notices the calendar behind Jack. It definitely wasn’t there in their previous calls, because Bitty would have noticed it. The picture is a cheesecake shot of a hot guy in a muscle shirt cuddling a puppy. Not the sort of thing Bitty could possibly overlook, even if he tried.

“Jack, what’s that on your wall?” he asks.

Jack cocks his head, then looks around to see what Bitty’s staring at. “Oh. It’s a charity calendar the team made last year. They do animal rescue, so it’s all the guys with rescued animals. They gave it to me as part of the welcome package.”

“I might want a copy,” Bitty says before he can help himself. He hastily adds, “You know, if you pose for it next year.”

“Haha.” Jack has this way of laughing, almost always exactly two “ha”s, sometimes one, rarely more. But most often, just the “haha” and nothing else. Jack Zimmermann’s understated seal of amusement and approval. Bitty is happy to hear it.

“I just now realized,” he says, shifting onto his knees on the bed. “ Is this your apartment? Your new apartment?”

Jack looks around as though he’s not sure himself. “Yeah.”

Bitty lights up. “Can you show me around? Take me on a tour?”

“Of my apartment?”

“Yes! You’re on your laptop, right? I can tell you’re not on your phone anymore. So show me!”

“Um, okay,” and there’s some fumbling and a close-up of Jack’s chest that Bitty doesn’t mind at all, and then the camera shakes and wobbles and tilts as Jack lifts his laptop. “Um, this is my bedroom,” he starts. He pans around. Bitty sees a bed with powder-blue (Falconers blue, maybe?) sheets. A nightstand with a clock on it. A desk where Jack had been sitting a minute ago. It’s a nice bedroom, spacious, but except for the calendar on the wall, there’s very little in the way of personality.

“Jack, you have got to do something to those walls,” Bitty chides. “They’re so plain I feel like I can hear them crying.”

Jack sticks his head back in the frame. “What do you think I should do?”

“Find something you like and hang it up!”

“You mean art?”

“Art, photos --” Bitty claps his hands. “Oh gosh, yes, you should decorate with your photos!”

Jack frowns. “Doesn’t that seem kind of like bragging?”

This gets an eyeroll from Bitty. He scowls at the screen “Come on, honey. Nobody thinks you’re anything but humble to a fault. I don’t think you need to be worried about someone coming to your apartment and thinking it’s a shrine to you.” Bitty has a momentary vision of Jack Zimmermann’s apartment, decorated with trophies and sports pages covers and photographs of himself on the ice. Lord, that would be a trip and a half. “You take beautiful pictures. There’s no reason on earth you shouldn’t display them!”

“I do… have this one picture of the Haus I took last spring. I liked the way the wood looked.” He sounds shy as a tadpole. Bitty has to bite back his grin.

“See, that’s perfect! Fill your room with wonderful memories you’ve captured. Get them printed and framed. If I were there I’d go through them all with you and we could pick some out.”

“I could send you some. I think I figured out how to get them onto my computer. And then you could download them, or I could upload them?”

Bitty resists the urge to chirp Jack about his technological prowess, or lack thereof. “Sounds fun! Now show me your kitchen, Jack. I want to see the kitchen!”

As the video weaves and bobs, Bitty leans forward, curling like a cat onto his shins and forearms. He catches a glimpse of a hall and a living room with a low couch before the laptop is shuttled through a doorway and into the kind of space he could only dream of having.

The counters and cabinets wrap around three walls, interrupted by windows on two sides. There’s a gigantic island sitting in the middle of the floor, a wide blank surface just begging to be filled with cooling racks and mixing bowls. A gas range, a beautiful oven, a double sink. It is to kitchens as Faber was to rinks. Everything beautiful and spacious and…

...and, oh, dear Lord, completely empty.

At first glance, Bitty had murmured, “Oh, Jack, this kitchen!” Now he repeats himself in dismayed tones. “Oh, Jack, this kitchen…”

“Pretty good, eh?” Jack’s stupidly proud of himself. “I thought you might like it.”

“Jack. Where _is_ everything.” Bitty’s voice is flat.

“Hm?” Jack sets down the laptop on a counter and hunches down.

“Where is your blender?” Bitty asks, distressed. “Where is your mixer? Where is your slow cooker? Where are your flour and sugar canisters, where’s _anything?_ ”

“Um.” Jack scratches his head. “I bought a coffee maker, it’s over there…”

Bitty is beside himself. “Oh, _honey._ Oh, you poor sweetheart. Spice rack, Jack, you need a spice rack, where’s your spice rack?”

Jack’s starting to look guilty. “I don’t think I’d know what spices to put in it,” he says.

Straightening up, Bitty crosses his arms over his chest. “Well, salt and pepper are a good start!” he lectures. “And cinnamon and nutmeg for baking, and cloves… and oregano and rosemary for seasoning whatever god-awful lean meat they’re going to make you eat… never mind! I am going to text you a list. And you are going to go out to that grocery store and get every single one of…” His mind switches in a flash. “Oh, speaking of which, did you go see the nutritionist today?”

“Yeah. Oh, I meant to tell you, Bits. We have cheat days once every two weeks. So I can eat your pies if you send them.”

But Bitty hasn’t heard past the second sentence. “Jack.” The word comes out half-chiding, half-coy.

“Hm?”

Bitty chews on his lip a minute. His blood is racing, and it takes real effort to force the words out of his throat. “You just called me _Bits_ ,” he near-whispers.

“Um, yeah.” Jack’s voice is carefully even, but his cheeks are pinking. “The rest of the boys call you that all the time.”

“But _you_ never…” It’s different, it’s _so_ different coming from Jack’s lips. Bitty doesn’t know how to express it. It’s like a totally different word. _Bits_ from the guys is a nickname for a nickname, a way to keep things short and staccato. _Bits_ on Jack’s tongue was a tiny morsel of chocolate, delectable and precious. Bitty wants to hear it again, wants it so much he can taste it.  Sweet on his tongue, like a kiss.

“Besides," Jack says haltingly, "you called me… some things. Tonight. So I thought it was okay.”

“I did?”

“Yeah. Um. _Honey_.” The word sounds ridiculously awkward in Jack’s voice. “But I won’t call you Bits, if it’s strange coming from me.”

“No, it’s not strange!” Bitty might drown in the swell of affection he feels. Of course Jack would _apologize._ “It’s great. I love it. Call me that again.”

“Okay… Bits.” With soft eyes and a small smile.

The word hangs in the air. Bitty closes his eyes and thinks he can feel, for a moment, Jack’s hand on his cheek. “Jack,” he whispers, overwhelmed, his heart thundering.

He lifts a hand to the screen. After a moment, Jack’s own hand comes forward to meet Bitty’s. It’s a digital touch, and it doesn’t feel like a real one -- but Lord, it feels like _something_.

How is he going to live for three months without a chance to see Jack in person, to reach out and touch him for real? How can he live with just the memory of a kiss until the end of summer? But if he were there, hearing Jack murmur that nickname in that sweet low voice might actually kill him.

“Oh, I thought you might want to know.” Jack’s voice eases back into its casual tone. “Some of the guys are going up to Boston tomorrow night to see Beyonce’s concert.”

All thoughts of touches, digital and real, fly away. “WHAT.”

“Yeah, they invited me, but I’d much rather stay here and talk to you…”

“JACK.” Bitty seizes the screen. “GO.”

“I don’t really care about Beyonce all that much--”

“ **GO** .” Bitty fixes Jack with the hugest, most pleading eyes he can manage. “I can’t possibly date someone who passes up the opportunity to go to a _Beyonce concert._ GO, Jack. Let me live vicariously through you. PLEASE.”

“I won’t have time to Skype with you tomorrow, then.” Jack looks a little sad.

But even those sad eyes are not going to dissuade Bitty. “Take pictures. And tell me all about it the next day. I’m _begging_ you.”

Jack looks dubious. “All right. But only because you said so.”

“ _Thank you Jack thank you._ ” Bitty is bouncing on his bed a little now. A Beyonce concert. In Boston. How has he missed that? He should have stayed at school an extra week. Not that he could afford tickets. But Jack! Jack gets to go! Bitty’s heart is exploding with borrowed joy.

“Well.” Jack’s carting him back to the bedroom now, setting his laptop down on the desk. Bitty kind of loves the thought that he’s part of Jack’s decor right now. The walls might be blank, the kitchen might be sparse, but Bitty is sitting on his desk like a living picture, and that’s wonderful. “I suppose I ought to get to bed. I’ll text you tomorrow, okay”

“I want pictures,” Bitty scolds. “All the pictures.”

“Haha, all right. Good night, Bittle.”

“Jack?”

“Hm?”

Bitty takes in a soft breath. “Can you call me that again? Can you say ‘goodnight, Bits’?”

Jack smiles. “Only if you say ‘goodnight, honey’ back.”

“Jack!”

But the laugh he expects never comes. “I mean it,” Jack says. “I liked that, too.”

Bitty’s heart overflows. He reaches out and touches the screen, running a finger over the digital line of Jack’s cheek. “Good night, honey,” he says, and means it totally.

“Good night, Bits.”

Jack says it, then sits there staring at him, making no movement to end the call.

Bitty wonders for a moment if it would be okay to just sit here and smile at Jack wordlessly all night. Jack seems not to mind. The seconds are slipping away, and he’s still not moving. As Bitty watches, the smile slides off his face, and his lips part slightly. He looks so kissable it hurts.

In the end, it’s Bitty who has the strength to murmur “Good night” one more time and press the button. Jack’s face winks out, and Bitty’s looking at himself.

Sighing, he closes the app and settles back onto the pillows. No call with Jack tomorrow. But, he reminds himself, for the best of reasons.

Maybe he’ll make cookies tomorrow. He can make enough cookies to ship a bunch to every last one of the boys. Mountains of cookies. Rivers of cookies. Bitty goes to bed thinking of chocolate chips and raisins and sugar…

...and Beyonce.

And “Bits.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaand that's my hastily cobbled together excuse to not have an update tomorrow. See you again in two days. :)


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> May 22.

Jack calls at 6 a.m.  
  
Bitty groans and rolls over. He pulls a pillow over his head. For a good thirty seconds, as his tablet rings and buzzes on the desk, two parts of his brain compete: the _I don't want to get up_ part, and the _I want to talk to Jack_ part.  
  
Then the _I want to talk to Jack_ part plays the Beyonce card, and after that there's no contest.  
  
He burrows out from the blankets, crosses wearily to the desk, and pulls the tablet back to bed with him. Lying on his side, half-covered in his comforter, he presses the button and blinks fondly at Jack's far-too-awake face. "How was it?"  
  
Jack's momentarily startled by the greeting. "Good morning, Bittle," he says.  
  
He has no right to look that well put-together this early in the morning. Bitty mumbles a "morning" back at him.  
  
"I sent you pictures last night. I'm sorry, they weren't very good."  
  
"Mm." Bitty nods sleepily. He saw them. They were badly lit and Queen Bey herself was shadowed or overexposed most of the time, but the pyrotechnics on stage were impressive. "Was she amazing?"  
  
"Should I call you back later? I thought..."   
  
"No no no, tell me. Was she amazing?" Bitty can't bother to think of new words, so he just repeats the old ones.  
  
"She was an impressive performer. Very fit. She did a lot of dancing. And she seemed very nice."  
  
Everything screeches to a halt. Bitty sits up straight in bed.  
  
"Very _nice_? Jack, did you... did you _meet_ her??"  
  
Jack chuckles. "Only for a second. The tickets came from team management, so there was a small meet-and-greet backstage--"  
  
"YOU MET HER?" Bitty just woke up his parents, and he couldn't care less.  
  
"Calm down. I just shook her hand, it wasn't..."  
  
"YOU _TOUCHED_ HER?"  
  
Bitty stands on his bed, holding the tablet at arms' length, staring at Jack's slightly shell-shocked face. "Jack Laurent Zimmermann tell me absolutely everything," he says in as close to a scary voice as he can muster.  
  
"Um," Jack starts. "We went to the concert and..."  
  
("Dicky!" A knock on the door. "What on earth are you screaming about at six in the morning?"  
  
Hissed back: "Mama, sorry -- it's Jack -- he -- I'll tell you later but it's _very important_!")  
  
"...standing in this room not really knowing what we're doing there. And then the door opens, and she comes through surrounded by big guys, security guys I suppose. And everyone reaches out to shake her hand, so, so do I, and mine was one of the hands she shook. But I didn't get to say a word to her. Not sure what I would have said, anyway. 'Hello, I don't know who you are but my friend likes you a lot'?"  
  
"Ja-a-a-ack." Bitty's stopped standing on the bed by now and is lying down again, on his stomach, still holding the tablet at arm's length in front of his face. "Oh, Lord. To be there! I'm so jealous. So jealous. You don't even know how lucky you are."  
  
"Oh, I do," Jack says, his smile widening. "Just not about Beyonce."  
  
"Don't you sweet-talk me this early in the morning." Bitty pouts. He briefly considers bringing up the fact that Jack just referred to him as his 'friend.' That stung a little -- does Jack generally go around kissing his friends until they're dizzy and gasping? But it's early, and Beyonce trumps everything. "What about the concert, though? What did she sing?"  
  
"I, ah, didn't know most of the songs," Jack admits. "But she did do the one song. You know."  
  
"No, I don't know." Beyonce has a lot of songs. A lot. Jack should know this. Bitty's going to have to give him a primer.   
  
"You know," Jack says again dumbly, and draws a circle in midair. Bitty has no idea what that's about until Jack says, "The halo halo one."  
  
Mysterious circles now make sense. "It's just one Halo."  
  
"Right."  
  
Bitty tries not to giggle. "Jack, you remembered one Beyonce song. I'm impressed."  
  
Jack frowns. "Of course I remember it. It's the song you were singing when you-- when I--" His eyes flicker elsewhere. "After graduation."  
  
And, just like that, Bitty's melting inside. He draws the tablet close, curls onto his side, and looks at Jack on the screen like he's everything. "You remember that?"  
  
"Bits." And oh dear Lord, there's the nickname again, and Jack's face, Jack's eyes right now -- oh, Bitty's all liquid inside. "I remember everything about that. Every last thing." Jack's smile, oh, Lord, Bitty's not going to survive that smile.  "That was--" He visibly fumbles for words, and it's adorable. "--a big deal for me. You know?"  
  
Oh, _bless_ Jack and his awkwardness. "It was a big deal for me, too."  
  
Jack scowls. "Don't chirp."  
  
"I'm not. Say, Jack?" Bitty rolls onto his back, holds the tablet above his head. "Does this mean Halo is, like, our song?"  
  
"Our song?" There's a darkness in Jack's eyes right now. It's sexy as hell.  
  
"You know. Couples usually have a song. If... if we're a couple."  
  
"We're a couple," Jack says readily. Then, in a rush: "Bits, looking down at you like this is driving me crazy."  
  
Oh. OH. Bitty takes in the sight of Jack right now. His pupils are dilated, and he's leaning forward, like he's trying to pull himself through the screen. There's a wildness to his expression, something that makes Bitty's heart race and his body heat up. For a moment, Bitty sees himself as Jack sees him -- in repose against the sheets, body languid, neck and shoulder exposed, hair ruffled. An object of desire.  His eyes narrow, and he smiles up at Jack. "Is it, now?"   
  
Nothing but Jack's labored breathing on the other end of the line. It sounds almost as if Jack's doing something scandalous. _Almost_. Both his hands are in plain view.  
  
Bitty rolls onto his side, pulling the tablet closer. "So we're a couple?"  
  
Jack returns to his usual confused self. "What else would we be?"  
  
"I don't know. Earlier you called me your friend."  
  
"I did? Oh. I was thinking about what I'd say in front of the team, you know--"  
  
Oh. Right. Jack probably can't say certain things in front of his teammates. The thought brings up a whole can of worms that Bitty'd rather not open right now. Another conversation for another time. "What am I when we're alone, then?"  
  
Jack squints like the question is dumb. "My boyfriend. Of course."   
  
"Of course," Bitty repeats nonchalantly, though he's all golden liquid inside again. "And you're mine?"  
  
Jack nods. Bitty fights the urge to squirm. His toes clench and unclench, a silent subtle dance of joy.   
  
"Okay, then. Now, Jack. I don't want you washing that hand for the rest of the summer. I need to absorb Bey's energy through you."  
  
"A little too late for that, eh?"  
  
"Jack!"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Because I missed yesterday I'll try to do another chapter today if I can!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> May 23.

They don’t get around to Skyping again until late on Saturday night. Jack has a “newcomer’s banquet” where he and the other rookie get glad-handed by all the team’s biggest sponsors and patrons. When he finally calls, it’s 11 p.m., and Bitty is secretly delighted to see he’s wearing a tuxedo with the bowtie untied. He looks deliciously rumpled. Bitty promptly has -- and buries -- a number of untoward thoughts.

“Oh,  _ honey _ ,” he croons. “You look like they chewed you up and spit you out.”

“It was a long night,” Jack says with a rueful smile. “I’m just glad to finally be home.”

He spins Bitty a tale of ball gowns and suit jackets, champagne flutes and hors d'oeuvres. The pie at dessert, he says with a wink, was “not the best I’ve ever had.” Bitty puffs up proudly.

“And afterwards the guys were going out to some club, I think, but I wanted to get some sleep. Tomorrow’s going to be a long day. It’s the first big press event with me and Stevens, and then there’s a big luncheon with some of the players and their... “ He frowns. “Significant others.”

Bitty knows what he means.  _ WAGs _ . A group Bitty might hope to become a part of, if he wasn’t… a him. He gets that it causes Jack some consternation, but really, it doesn’t bother Bitty yet. They’re still so  _ new _ . There’s a million other questions and issues that have to get worked out just between the two of them. How he fits into some potential future social group isn’t so high on his list of worries. He likes the group he’s in now.

“Are they giving you any time off?” he asks. “This all sounds so tiring.” The absurdity of saying that to Jack “Get up at 4 a.m. so we can practice checking until 7 at night” Zimmermann isn’t lost on him, but even so.

“In August,” Jack says. “And -- the Fourth of July weekend, but that’s it.”

A sudden wish tickles at Bitty’s heart. He tries to squash it down. “I bet you’ll really need the rest.”

“Right now it feels like it,” Jack admits. “And all the guys just say to me, ‘Wait ‘til the season starts.’”

To hear Jack sound this weary is sobering. He’s got so much to deal with now. Not just hockey -- Bitty’s pretty sure Jack could go a week straight on the ice without so much as breaking a sweat. But the rest of it. Learning how to be a celebrity -- not on campus, but everywhere. Getting used to this new life he’s starting. So much that Bitty can’t even fathom. 

Guilt rushes in, all at once, heavy and overwhelming. Jack could be resting right now. He could be out at that club with the guys. He could be doing any number of things, but instead he’s sitting at his desk in his lonely bedroom, talking to Bitty on Skype. 

Sighing, Bitty sits back into the corner, where his bed’s headboard meets the wall at a right angle. The pillows are soft beneath him, but the headboard’s knob digs into his back. “Hey, Jack?” he starts softly. “Is this too much? Are we talking too much? Except for the concert night we’ve talked to each other every day since we left.”

“And?” is Jack’s only response. 

Bitty should be relieved, but it only makes his gut churn harder. “I don’t know. I don’t want to be… You should be out, doing… something. At that club”

“Bittle.” A laugh. “This is  _ me _ . I don’t… club.” 

“I know, I just…”  The truth tumbles out now, as much a surprise to Bitty as anyone. “I guess I’m scared you might get sick of me.”

“Sick of you, how?”

Bitty gives a sigh. “I don’t know,” he confesses. “I’m just scared that if we talk too often, if we see each other like this every single night, we might… I don’t know, I’m just worried…” 

_ Worried I care about you too much already, that I want too much and I’m asking too much. Worried because this feeling is so huge and frightening, this  _ want _ that’s in my blood and my skin every single day, and I’m used to having crushes but I’m not used to actually being with someone, what if I feel too much, what if I feel for you more than you feel for me, and what if that scares you off?  _

He can’t say any of it, wouldn’t if he could, but just the thoughts make him shrink back, curling into himself. As though he could physically keep a lid on his feelings.

Recognition dawns in Jack’s eyes. “I’m sorry. I don’t want to be too much of a burden to you. If I’m calling too often…”

“What?” Bitty can’t believe his ears. “No, that’s not what I’m saying, that’s the  _ opposite _ of what I’m--”

“It’s just…” And now it’s Jack who sighs. “I miss you. All the time.”

_ Oh. _ He wasn’t expecting that. Bitty’s pulse beats fast in his wrists.

“It feels like -- we only got to say goodbye. As  _ us _ , I mean. Together.” Jack’s cheeks redden. “I kissed you, and then I had to leave. And there’s so much we could have done.”

“Jack…” Bitty’s breathless, his eyes wide.

“I wanted to take you on a real date,” Jack says shyly. “I would have, if there’d been time.”

Bitty scrambles to get back to his senses. “No, I would have taken  _ you  _ on a date. I’m a gentleman.”

This pulls a smile from Jack’s lips. “Haha, fair enough.”

“Mm-hm.” Bitty nods sagely. “I’d treat you to dinner and pull out your chair and open the door for you. I’d be so suave, I’d charm the pants off you---” And then, with a sudden scrambling realization of what he’s just said: “Not literally -- I mean--”

“Literally is good.” With a wicked smile.

Bitty can  _ literally _ not fathom the fact that Jack just said that. “Oh, my gosh. Oh, oh,  _ goodness _ , Jack. I can’t-- I didn’t mean to--”

Jack leans toward the camera. “Dating’s not all we could have done, Bits.”

_ Ahh! _

How can hockeysexual Jack Zimmermann turn on the innuendo that easily? Bitty’s going to die, steam’s going to come out his ears until he’s got no air left. He stares at the screen. His mouth flaps open and shuts a few times, without a single word coming out.

His silence seems to mellow Jack a bit. “Sorry. Was that too much?”

“It-- it-- it--”. To have Jack look at him like that, talk to him like that!  _ Think  _ of him like that! “It was just really sudden, that’s all.”

“Oh. Sorry.” And then, with a glint in his eyes: “So if I warn you now, you’ll be prepared tomorrow?”

Bitty’s fingers curl up in his palm. “Prepared for  _ what _ ?”

There’s something about the smile Jack gives him then that reminds Bitty of hearthfires and blankets on cold days, of smoke rising and coals burning. Heat rushes over Bitty’s skin -- once, then again when Jack says, “I want to tell you some things.”

There’s no doubt what those  _ things _ are. Jack’s low, soft voice conveys that perfectly. Bitty’s breathing shallowly. His heart is racing. And thank goodness Jack can’t see the front of his jeans right now.

And oh, Lord, tomorrow’s a Sunday. Coach and Mama are going to drag him to  _ church. _

“Jack--” His face is hot, everything’s hot-- “I-- oh, dear Lord above-- I--”

“Tomorrow?” Jack asks. There’s  _ so much _ in the upward lilt of his voice. A request. A tease. A promise.

Bitty nods. “Tomorrow.” The word comes out a restless breath. Sure, tomorrow's fine. He can handle tomorrow.

If he even survives tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why yes, i am setting myself up to have some *fun* writing tomorrow.
> 
> I want to thank everybody for the amazing comments!! I read and appreciate each one. I've not responded so far because all my spare time needs to go to actually writing but they mean the world to me. Thank you so much for reading this crazy improvised nonsense!


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> May 24.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought this one was going to be easy to write. It was not.
> 
> (Edited 5/25 to bring Jack's voice a little more in line with what I imagine he'd actually say.)

Bitty is indeed dragged to church on Sunday morning. And he prays. Not for divine grace or forgiveness. Just to _survive._

His brain is all a cloud of Jack’s small smiles and sweet smoky voice. Promises and innuendoes. _I want to tell you things._

What on earth is Jack going to say? And how is Bitty going to live through it without a) fainting, b) coming in his pajama pants, or c) bursting into nervous laughter? Any one of the three could be devastating. And he wouldn’t be surprised if he managed all three, in some order.

He walks around after church, greeting family friends and answering questions about his life at college (“oh,  yes, Mrs. Petersen, I bake _all the time_ at school!”), but his mind’s a haze of fevered imaginings. Will Jack be romantic? Will he have a dirty mouth? Will he be awkward in his Jackish way, stuttering out that Bitty looks nice or something equally and embarrassingly benign? Will he forget the whole thing and they’ll end up having their (admittedly nice) normal chat, nothing more than that?

“Dicky, you look like you’re about to pass out,” his mother murmurs to him. “Are you feeling all right?”

“Um. Yes, Mama, sorry! It’s just a little hot out.”

“Hm, you think? I kind of like the breeze today.” But Mama doesn’t push. Thank goodness.

In the afternoon, Bitty’s compelled to bake something with strawberries. He makes a fresh-strawberries-and-cream pie, which they dig into after dinner. The tastes of heavy, sweet cream and tart fruit linger on his tongue as he heads upstairs, and he feels oddly buzzy. The pie may have been the greatest idea of his life, or the stupidest. Either way, he’s tingling as he pulls out his laptop and calls Jack.

Oh. Oh. Greatest idea of his life. Bitty’s lips purse and his fingers itch. The cloying sweetness on his tongue is making everything brighter and realer. Including the image on his screen of a smiling Jack Zimmermann.

A smiling, _shirtless_ Jack Zimmermann.

“Hi, honey,” Bitty says, feeling more or less drunk. “Did I catch you at a bad time?”

“I just got out of the shower,” Jack says, and yes, now that Bitty looks closer, he can see the dampness in Jack’s hair, the wild ruffled edges of it where Jack’s surely dragged a towel over his head. A small bead of water or sweat hangs just below his ear, luminous in the camera’s light. Bitty wants to reach up and flick it off. Or maybe catch it with his mouth. And then catch the one making its way down from Jack’s collarbone to his chest.  And then any other drops he can find.

Bitty has seen Jack shower. Bitty has showered right next to him. That doesn’t stop his imagination from going full tilt at the idea of Jack under the spray, back arched and head thrown back. Oh, Lord, they haven’t even _talked_ yet and Bitty’s already halfway to passing out.

“How was your press conference?” he asks, searching his brain for topics that don’t involve Jack’s nakedness (does he have anything on below the waist? There’s no indication, but Bitty can’t imagine Jack sitting, Shitty-like, bare-assed on his computer chair).

“Oh. Yeah.” Jack flashes a dazzling grin and barks out a laugh. “Well, it was fine for me. Stevens wasn’t so lucky.”

“Hm?”

Jack laughs again, shaking his head. “Poor guy. He had a bad moment.”

Whatever it is, if it makes Jack laugh this much, it must be hysterical. “Stevens is the other rookie, right?”

“Yeah. He… ah….” Jack looks away. “Never mind. I’ll tell you another time.”

“What? No, tell me!”

“Bittle.” And all at once dark eyes are fixed on him, and Bitty can’t breathe. “I wanted to talk about us.”

Okay. Okay, so. Jack hasn’t forgotten. That much is clear. Bitty swallows down the lump in his throat, once, then again. The flavors of the pie still linger in his mouth, and for an instant it’s like he can taste it with his whole body. Tart tingling excitement, soft sweet anticipation, ringing through his limbs and settling down deep into his gut.

“About us,” he echoes dumbly. “Right. Okay. Um, what are we talking about, ‘about us’?”

Jack’s eyes have a light in them, and he’s smiling slightly. He leans forward, shoulders hunching toward the screen. “About you,” he says. “About what I-- how I want to--” His teeth graze over his lower lip, and he flushes -- not a bright pink like Bitty gets, but a gentle rose that rises to his cheekbones and softens his whole face. “Do you remember the other day? When you said if you were here, what you’d do?”

Bitty nods. “I said I’d kiss you,” he half-whispers. “And you said you’d… kiss me too, if you were here.”

“Bits.” Jack’s voice hitches over the word, and he grasps his screen with both hands. The words come out in a breathy rush. “I want to kiss you now." He hesitates. "Badly.”

The only thing Bitty can do is gasp.

“I want to be there.” Now there’s power behind Jack’s voice, and almost anger. “I want to be there, and I want to touch you. And I hate that I can't. It's... it's not fair.”

Heat soars through Bitty in a dizzy spiral. “Jack, oh, my God. I don’t even know what to--”

“I want to kiss you,” Jack says, “I want to be right there and kiss you, and kiss your face, and-- and your hair, touch your hair, and -- and that spot on your neck.” He sounds half-crazed, his voice thick and legato, like flowing honey. “I want to kiss you right -- right there.”

He lifts his hand, indicating something on his screen, but Bitty doesn’t know what. Raising his own hand to his throat, he asks, “Here?”

“To the right,” Jack instructs. “Further. Up a little. Right there.”

It’s a patch of soft skin tucked under Bitty’s chin. He closes his eyes and imagines Jack’s mouth there. The thought nearly sends him out of his skin with want, and he sucks in a shuddering breath.  “Oh,” he murmurs. “Oh, _Jack_.”

“ _Yes_.” Jack’s hiss is soft, his eyes heavy-lidded. He may just be imagining the same thing. The idea sends a fresh thrill up Bitty’s spine.

Excited, trembling, a little bold, Bitty tries to find his own words. “Jack, you kiss me there and I’d-- I’d grab your shoulders, I’d hold on so tight. I’d run my fingers through your hair and I’d say--”

“Tell me.” HIs voice is all burning embers, rough and hot.  

“I’d say yes. I’d say -- yes… Jack, more, kiss me more.” A soft whine breaks from his throat. “ _Please._ ”

“Bits.” Blue eyes are blazing. “Right now, I just want to--”

“Me, too.” Bitty answers readily. “Whatever it is, Jack, I want it too.”

“I wish I was there.”

“Jack,” A rush of inspiration, and Bitty doesn’t know if it’s too much or too soon, doesn’t know anything but how badly he wants it. “Get in bed with me. Just bring your laptop and lie down.”

“Oh.” Jack looks a little lost for a second. “Okay.”

“Look, I’m getting into bed too.” Bitty pulls the covers over him, snuggles down onto the pillows, and props his tablet up against the wall. “See. I want you to lie down with me.”

“Oh.” The scene changes, as the laptop is pulled off the desk and onto the bed. Bitty watches as Jack (in boxers, he sees now) settles down onto his own pillows and presses close to the screen. His shoulders are wide and so pink, and Bitty wants to nuzzle into them, bathe into the warmth they must be radiating.

They just look at each other for a moment before Jack clears his throat. “Um… what now?”

“Now…” Bitty hadn’t thought that far. He just wanted this, the two of them lying close together. “Now imagine it’s really me next to you.  I’m here with you, and I’m… I’m kissing you.”

Jack’s eyes sink closed, and he lets out a low “mm.”

“I’m kissing you, and my hand is--” He thinks something X-rated, flushes, and tries to find a better option. “My hand is on your arm. Stroking you, nice and gentle. And… and it’s so nice and warm, and we could both fall asleep just like--”

“I don’t want to fall asleep,” Jack growls. “I want to touch you more.”

Bitty shivers. He doesn’t want to fall asleep either. “S… so touch me.”

“I am,” Jack says, his voice low and breathy and tight with tension. “I’m  holding -- I’m holding onto your hips. I’m pulling you closer. My legs-- and your legs are -- I’m moving my hands down your thighs.”

Bitty studies his face, the taut passion there. The set of his jaw, the tightness of his throat when he swallows. Lord, how much he wants to lean in and cover that throat with kisses, to suck on Jack’s skin and taste it with his tongue. The image overwhelms him, and his own eyes flutter shut.

“Mm,” he murmurs. “I can feel it.” He feels more than that. In his mind, Jack’s hands are sliding backward to cup his ass, squeeze him close. He can feel Jack hard against his hip. He doesn’t even know how that will feel -- he’s never had that kind of contact before -- but here, in his mind’s eye, it’s mind-blowing. And in real life, he’s achingly hard, breathing shallowly and trying like hell not to reach down and start touching himself.

“Bits,” A half-groan. “I want to-- I want to be on top of you.”

“Jack, _Lord_ ,” Bitty breathes. “If you keep this up I’m going to have to--”

“Me, too,” Jack says.

They both open their eyes, look at each other, and _know._ A wild wave of uncertainty rushes over Bitty. Are they really about to...? Already? So soon? He wants to, his _body_ sure wants to, but...

“Jack.” His voice lowers to a hissing whisper. “Should we really do this? Is it too much?”

“I don’t know.” An answering fear lurks in Jack’s voice. “Maybe we should stop.”

“Maybe,” Bitty agrees reluctantly. He fights to keep a lid on his breathing, wills the hammering of his heart to slow. “I guess it would be weird, huh? To do that on Skype. Without even doing it in person first.”

“Maybe? I don’t know.” Jack’s forcing his breaths to quiet as well. “I want-- I want so much. We wasted so much time. If I’d figured it out before-- what I wanted...”

Bitty hears the ragged edge of tension and regret in his voice. No. He doesn’t want anything they do together to make Jack sound like that. “Jack. It’s okay,” he soothes. “We have time. We have plenty of time.”

“I’m sorry, Bits.” There’s that apologetic sound again. It hurts to hear.

“Don’t be sorry. Don’t you dare be sorry, Mr. Zimmermann."

"I can't help it. I shouldn't have pushed you..."

" _Shhh._ " Bitty fixes him with the sternest scowl he can muster. "Listen to me, Jack. You told me how you feel, now let me tell you.”

Jack sighs. “Okay.”

“Okay. Good. First thing, close your eyes.” Jack obeys. “Now I want you to feel my hand on your face, all right? Just stroking down your face, nice and gentle.”

After a brief hesitation, Jack hums and nods.

“Good. Now listen to me, Jack. We have all the time in the world. I’m not going anywhere. I’m…” He swallows. “I’m crazy about you, Jack. And I can’t wait ‘til we’re in the same room again, because you’re going to get more kisses than you know what to do with. And probably a whole lot more. So we don’t have to do anything tonight.”

“I don’t want to wait,” Jack says. Frustration furrows his brow.

“I know, honey. But let’s make sure we’re sure, okay? We’ve only been doing this a week.”

“Has it really only been a week?”

“Less.”

Jack frowns. “Really?”

“Really!” Bitty has to laugh. “Graduation was Monday, remember?”

“Wow.” Jack blinks sleepily at the screen. “Hey, Bits?”

“Hm?”

“Can we do what we did before? Just lie here, like we’re going to fall asleep?”

“Sure, honey. Just imagine like you did before. I’m curled up next to you, and my hand’s on your arm…”

* * *

When Bitty wakes up with the Monday morning sun, the call has been ended, but the tablet’s still propped up against his wall. He doesn’t remember exactly what got said, or who did what, but none of the details matter -- not in comparison to the pleasant warmth that envelops him as he blinks and burrows into the blankets.

  
He pulls the tablet close and curls as though into a strong pair of waiting arms. “Good morning, Jack,” he murmurs.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> May 25.
> 
> Thanks to jaradel for brainstorming help :)

Monday is Memorial Day, and Bitty never saw it coming.

Somehow the holiday snuck up on him without his even making plans. It took Coach slapping him on the back and saying he was gonna fill Bitty up on burgers and ribs that he even knew there was a cookout planned. A panicked run to the store and frantic baking followed. And at 4 p.m., the friends and relatives came rumbling in like a thunderstorm.

Stuffed, manhandled and thoroughly exhausted, Bitty finally makes it upstairs to his room at about 9:30. He’s busy throwing a few sets of clothes into an overnight bag when Jack’s call comes in.

“Are you running away from home?” Jack asks at the sight of the bag on the bed. 

Bitty flops down onto his stomach beside it, groaning . “That would be a better idea. No, my uncles are dragging me fishing. Again. To _morrow_.”

“Fishing?” God bless him, Jack looks a little excited at the prospect.

“Also known as sitting around on a decrepit old pier for six hours on end, doing horrendous things to poor innocent worms and dodging questions about my love life. Save me, Jack. Fly down here in a rocket ship and rescue me.”

“Haha. I’m on my way.”

Thank God for Jack’s laugh then, because the moment Bitty said it, he got nervous. What if Jack took him seriously? What if he got on a plane and flew down to Georgia tomorrow? Bitty wouldn’t put it past him. And he also wouldn’t put it past himself to secretly hope for that kind of scenario, as problematic as it would surely be.

Basically, he just wants to see Jack in person a whole lot. Last night’s fumbling didn’t help ease that craving, one little bit.

“Hey, Jack?” he says, tilting his head. “What exactly happened last night? I don’t remember hanging up.”

Jack chuckles. “That’s ‘cause you didn’t,” he says. “You fell asleep on the phone. Or Skype. Whatever this is.”

“I did? Oh, no.” Bitty’s mortified. “I hope I didn’t start snoring at you.”

“You didn’t snore. You made some little noises, like--” Jack gives a noise halfway between a grunt and a whimper, pouting as he does it, and Bitty has a sudden image of himself slack-jawed and whining in his sleep. He wants to lay down and die.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles. “I didn’t mean to.”

“Don’t be sorry. It was cute. I watched you for a while before hanging up.”

“You _watched_ me?” Bitty buries his head in his hands. He was lying there out like a light and snuffling like a moron, and Jack was just sitting there watching? Doubly mortifying.

“I’m sorry.” Jack looks a little lost. “I didn’t think it would make you uncomfortable.”

“Oh, no, honey, it’s fine! I’m just sorry you had to see that.” 

“I’ll miss you,” Jack blurts out.

All the mortification flies away in favor of confusion. “You’ll what now?” 

Jack looks equally confused. His eyebrows are drawn tight together. “When you’re gone on your trip, I mean.” 

Oh. That makes more sense. “I know, honey. I’ll miss you too.”

For a moment Bitty just gets lost looking at Jack. The lines of his face, the soft creases in his furrowed brow. It’s not the same as it was last night, not that aching sweet desire, but Bitty still wants to touch him more than anything.

“I’ll call as soon as I get home, okay?” Bitty says. 

“Okay.” Jack relaxes. “I want to see the fish you catch.”

“You can see them right now.” Bitty spreads his hands wide. “See? This is all of them.”

“Haha. Not good with a fishing rod, then?”

Bitty sniffs. “Like it’s such a desirable skill.”

“Well, there must be some reason they want you to come along.”

“Yeah, to make my life miserable.”

“No, come on. Maybe it’s your baking. Can you make fish pies?”

“You chirp, Mr. Zimmermann, but there is in fact such a thing as a fish pie. Don’t-- don’t you curl  your lip at me like that. What’s that for? It’s protein.”

“Hmm.” Naturally, _that_  would be what makes Jack think twice. Bitty laughs. Sometimes Jack is the most predictable cactus in the whole damn desert.

And then there are times, like last night, when he’s definitely not. Bitty’s face gets hot. Jack last night was -- well, he was still Jack. Earnest, determined, single-minded, the way he is about everything. But this time it was about _him._ And that made everything different.

Probably, the next time, they won’t stop where they stopped. Especially if they have to wait until August to see each other again. Bitty can’t imagine going two full months without them doing _anything_ , even virtually.  He’s already spent a good part of today thinking about what it’ll look like, when they finally get to that point.  What they’ll say and do, what they’ll _show_ to each other.  The whole thing had him full of illicit chills all morning long.

Oh, dear. He's just sitting here silently, now, thinking dangerous thoughts, isn't he? And Jack is just doing the same, sitting there and looking at him. Lord only knows what _he's_ thinking about. Bitty can feel the familiar steam start to rise under his collar. Time to talk about something else.

“Oh!” He claps his hands. “You were going to tell me what happened to your teammate, right? At the press conference.”

Jack promptly turns a color Bitty doesn’t think he’s ever seen before. “Oh. Oh, boy.” 

“What?” Bitty shifts into a cross-legged position, like he’s a kindergarten student about to get storytime. Grinning, he waits for Jack to spill.

“I feel kind of bad telling,” Jack says. 

“Now, Jack, it’s not fair to tease me about it and not _tell_ me.”

“All right all right. Stevens is a smart guy, from what I can tell, but he doesn’t always… think of everything. And even with all the media training they gave us this week, well… nobody told him to mind what he ate for breakfast, I guess. Oh, boy.” Jack bites back a laugh.

Bitty claps his hand to his mouth. “He didn’t…”

“He, ah… he kept on letting out trumpet noises. Through the whole interview. We were trying so hard not to laugh.” 

“Oh, no!”

Jack’s eyes are downturned, and he keeps shaking his head and grinning. It is the most adorable blend of amused and ashamed Bitty’s ever seen. “I don’t think the microphones picked it up. But those of us sitting at the table could hear, and we were just a mess afterward. Some of the guys started calling him Pooty.” At this, Jack actually half-snorts. Bitty’s never heard him do that before.  “I think it’s gonna stick.”

As a proper Southern gentleman, Bitty really should be horrified by this whole thing. And he’s certainly … surprised … to hear Jack actually tell it with a kind of disguised glee. But there’s a specialness to this, too, to see Jack taking pleasure in his new circumstances, and it’s a welcome change from the weariness that’s been hanging over Jack for the past few days. Bitty knows a group bonding experience when he hears one. He’s not about to begrudge Jack that.

So Bitty gives in and laughs too. Laughs himself silly, actually. Halfway because of poor Stevens’ problem, but halfway just out of joy. Joy for Jack, for the new teammates and new misadventures that are bound to ensue for him. It must be like coming to Samwell for the first time, all over again. So many friends yet to be made. So much fun waiting just around the corner.

Maybe he can just let that propel him through these next couple of days. He can sit there by the lake and watch his line never move, but think about how Jack’s skating with new friends, forging new partnerships. He can spear worms and think of Jack getting to know the veterans, becoming the new guy that the team comes together to protect. He can dodge his way through intrusive questions, cringe at uncomfortable conversation, and amuse himself internally with ideas about the horrible nickname Jack’s inevitably going to end up with himself. Hopefully, it won’t involve bodily functions.

Maybe the fishing trip won’t be such a nightmare after all. 

Well. It’ll probably be a bit of a nightmare. But Bitty has a heartful of good feelings to carry with him this time, like an arsenal. Whatever unpleasantness is fired at him, he feels confident he can counter with something wonderful that only he knows. A secret smile he can fire at his uncles and never betray with a single word.

He goes to bed feeling optimistic. Bring on the family awkwardness.. Bitty’s _armed_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As you might guess from the setup, I won't be updating for a few days. Nothing tomorrow or Friday for sure, and possibly nothing Saturday (depending on my muse and my free time.) Definitely will have something Sunday at the very latest. Thanks always for reading and for your kind comments!


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> May 29.

The first thing Bitty does when he gets back from his fishing trip is run and hug his mother.

Then he runs upstairs and calls Jack. Because _oh my goodness._

It’s three p.m. and a Friday and Bitty half-expects Jack won’t be there to answer. But he does, and Bitty nearly jumps out of his skin with excitement upon seeing his face. Jack’s stupid, wonderful face.

“Jack. Jack oh my God,” he starts.

“Hi, Bits.” A smile twitches at the corner of Jack’s mouth. “Good fishing trip?”

Bitty’s momentarily stunned. “What? No. no, horrible fishing trip. But.” He waves his hands like he’s trying to shake his fingers loose. “But great moment. You won’t believe what my dad said to me.”

“Well, don’t keep me waiting.” Jack’s low drawl is thick with amusement. It’s sexy as hell. A piece of Bitty swoons. But he tries to keep his brain straight so he can recount the story correctly.

* * *

“You know, Eric plays on the team with that Jack Zimmermann,” Coach said to Uncle Teddy, as though he hasn’t bragged about it a thousand times before.

“Played,” Bitty corrects flatly. “Jack’s graduated.”

“Signed with the Falcs, didn’t he?” Uncle Teddy says. “Waste, if you ask me. Should’ve gone to Boston or Chicago. Deserves to be a big fish in a big pond, that kid.”

“He didn’t--” Bitty begins, then thinks better of it. Chicago never courted Jack, and Shitty was beside himself with outrage about the whole thing. Get-up-on-the-table-at-the-dining-hall-and-pontificate levels of outrage. Not that Shitty has a lower setting.

“Zimmermann, isn’t that--” Uncle Sandy starts.

“Bad Bob’s kid, isn’t he?”

“That’s right,” Bitty says.

“Well, when are you going to introduce us, Eric?” Teddy… oh dear lord, Teddy has _stars_ in his eyes.

“Suzanne does keep talking about Eric inviting some of his friends down over the summer,” Coach says. “Maybe if we twist his arm right, he’ll ask the Zimmermann boy down so we can all meet him.”

Bitty’s heart does a shuddering time step in his chest. “Mom said that?” he asks, timidly, afraid he heard it wrong.

“She hasn’t talked to you about it?” There’s mild surprise in Coach’s tone, but no feeling like he’s betrayed a secret. “She’s worried you won’t have enough ‘peer interaction’ down here over the summer. I try to tell her you young ones are all connected on the Internet, but she keeps saying I should bring it up. I say ‘Why me?’ and she says ‘You just should be the one to say something about it.’ So there ya go. Said something ‘bout it.” He shrugs and fiddles with his rod.

“So, wait. Coach-- _Dad._ ” Bitty’s trying not to jump out of his skin. “So if I did ask Jack to come down, you’d be okay with it?”

Another shrug from Coach. “Sure. He’s Canadian, right? We can show him how Americans do a Fourth of July.” Coach laughs as though it’s the funniest joke in the universe.

As for Bitty, he nearly passes out.

* * *

“So I double-checked with Mama and she said sure, you were welcome to come down, and can you imagine, Jack, we might actually get to see each other before August, I couldn’t believe that Coach brought it up, honestly, I never expected it from him, but Uncle Teddy is way into hockey and he asked me a million questions last summer about the team and…”

“Bits.”

“...you’d have to deal with the fact that Coach likes to brag and he’ll probably try to monopolize you through most of the holiday if I know him but I mean that’s a good thing, he talks to me about hockey sometimes now and that’s actually kind of neat, to be able to talk to him about...”

“Bits. Bittle.” Low and flat, a word wielded like a blunt object. Bitty reels as though he’s been struck.

Jack sighs. “I have to see what my schedule is like. We have the holiday off but I’m not sure what’s happening around then. There are events almost every weekend. I might not be able to…”

“Oh.” Bitty feels his dreams drain like bathwater. “Oh, I hadn’t thought of that, Jack. I’m sorry. I got all excited and I didn’t even think about whether you could… or whether you wanted to, even.”

“Of course I want to.”

Jack does the thing where he grabs the sides of the screen. Bitty always feels it like he’s being pulled close. He stares at Jack, at those endless blue eyes, and makes a soft little sound.

“I just have to check my schedule. It may be I can come down for the weekend and that’s it. It won’t be a lot of time.” Jack sighs. “I don’t know. Maybe it’s not worth it.”

“It’s worth it!” Bitty explodes with the words, then reins himself in. “I mean. It’s worth it for me. If it is for you. I just want to see you.” He hears the plaintive ring to his own voice, but there’s nothing he can do about it. There’s no disguising how badly he misses Jack, how much he aches to be within touching distance of him again.

What’s amazing is to hear that same ache when Jack answers him. “I want to see you too. Let me see what I can do.”

Bitty swallows hard. “You let me know what you find out, okay?”

“I will. So, did you catch any fish?”

“Huh?”

“It was a fishing trip. Right?”

“Oh.” Bitty shoots some quality side-eye at Jack. “I already told you I wasn’t gonna catch any fish.”

“I thought maybe you were being modest.”

“Oh, no. No, no no. I am good at cooking the food, not catching it.” Bitty catches a glimpse of a sly expression sliding across Jack’s face. “You’re being a smartass.”

“I’m not! Not totally.”

“Not _totally,_ ” Bitty echoes, rolling his eyes. “Isn’t there some rule that you have to be nicer to me now that we’re boyfriends?’

Is that a patch of redness rising in Jack’s face? Or is Bitty projecting his own self-conscious flush at having said that word? “I didn’t realize there were rules.”

“Well, there are. Or there ought to be. Rule number one, don’t chirp if you want kisses.” Now he knows he’s flushing. Using words like _boyfriend_ and _kisses_ so casually is a brand-new experience.

“Oh.” Jack looks pensive. “Well, that’s a problem.”

“How is it a problem? It’s a perfectly straightforward rule.”

“Well, I want kisses. But I also want to see you pout like that.”

Bitty nearly leaps to his feet. “Jack! I don’t pout, I’m not pouting!”

“I like that face, too.”

“What face?”

“That outraged face.” Jack is on the verge of giggles. He’s biting his lip hard.

“Well, that’s it.” Bitty crosses his arms. “No kisses for you. Forget coming down in July.”

Jack laughs. “Wait, isn’t that chirping me, now? Rule number one, Bittle. No kisses for _you._ ”

Okay, now Bitty _is_ pouting. “Don’t say that!”

“You said it first.”

The conversation degenerates from there. By the time they hang up, Bitty’s warm all over, and his face aches from smiling. He once tweeted that chirping and flirting were basically the same thing, and right now he feels chirped, or flirted with, within an inch of his life. He’d happily take that kind of ribbing for the rest of his life, if it means having Jack look at him like that, with warm, sparkling eyes and a wide smile. To think Jack shows him that kind of a face. Jack, the scowling, humorless captain who used to shout at him in front of everybody. How very much they’ve grown.

He has a feeling he’s going to have trouble enforcing that Rule Number One if Jack does end up coming down for the Fourth of July.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully I manage a chapter tomorrow. If not, Tuesday. And then back to probably-daily chapters thereafter.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> May 30

Bitty’s hoping for some news on the Fourth of July front when he calls up Jack late Saturday night for their daily chat. Unfortunately, none seems to be forthcoming. It’s a weekend, so Jack hasn’t been around the people he needs to ask about those dates. He has, however, been with the team, and when Bitty asks about it, he gets a peal of laughter from Jack that almost certainly invites a story.

“Oh, boy,” Jack says every time Bitty asks him what’s so funny. “Oh, boy. Sorry. Let me …. “ He clears his throat, tries to wipe the grin off his face. “So Mashkov came back today.”

“Mashkov -- that’s  Alexei Mashkov, right?” Bitty has been memorizing the Falconers roster, though he doesn’t know much about the individual players yet. “He’s a forward.”

“Yeah. He had been visiting family in Russia during post, after the Falconers were knocked out.” Jack shakes his head. “I had heard stories, but, wow.”

Bitty can’t get enough of Jack like this, all shining eyes and big smile. “Tell me!” 

“Well, first of all, absolutely everybody turned out to meet him. The whole group. Half the guys were complaining that they had to be out there, but they were all there. Nobody forced them, eh? And still. 

“So everybody is there at the train station, because Mashkov likes the train. According to Wents, he has a Lamborghini, and he still takes Amtrak. 

“Then Mashkov comes out of the train. First of all, he is huge. Bigger than Holster. And he lifts his arms up, his suitcase just hanging in the air, and says ‘Friends!’ He comes barrelling at us and hugs us all five at a time.  Then he singles out Poots and me and grabs both our faces. And says-- ‘New guys, welcome welcome, yes.’” 

Jack’s imitation of a Russian accent is… sad, to put it kindly. But it’s fantastic to hear him tell stories this animatedly.  “Well, it sounds like he’s nice, at least?” 

“Nice. That’s a word for it.” Jack chuckles.

“Wasn’t he?”

“It’s hard to describe. He acts like… like he’s got a camera crew following him around. But yes, he welcomed us. It’s just--” Jack rolls his shoulders back, grimacing. “My shoulder still hurts where he nearly crushed it.”

“Oh.” Mashkov loses a few points in Bitty’s book. He’d been cultivating an image of the Russian Jolly Green Giant.

Jack is quick to pick up on Bitty’s disapproval. “No, he didn’t know he was doing it. He’s large, that’s all.”

Bitty’s still wary. “If you say so.”

Brightening, Jack goes on. “Then the whole way back, he kept saying, ‘I teach you what you need to know to be Falconer.’” He’s doing the awful accent again, but at least he’s half-laughing like he knows it’s terrible.

“Hah, and what _do_ you need to know to be a Falconer?”

“First thing? That everyone calls Mashkov ‘Tater.’”

Bitty lets loose a peal of laughter. “How do you get Tater from Mashkov?”

“No idea. I’ll let you know when I find out.” Jack shifts. “So that was my adventure. How was your day, Bits?”

“Well.” Bitty shrugs. “I talked to Shitty.”

“Oh. How is he?”

“To be honest? A little mad I hadn’t Skyped him yet this summer.”

Jack frowns. “Really?”

“Well, you know. He wasn’t super mad. Just Shitty-mad.” 

Jack nods in understanding. They both know what that means: completely and utterly outraged with no actual bad blood behind it.

Bitty interlaces his fingers, stretches out his linked palms. “I mean, he’s got a point. You and I have been talking so much, I haven’t really… well, I suppose I haven’t been a very good friend.”

“‘You’re a great friend. We’ve been a little preoccupied, that’s all.”

“I guess.”

Jack lobs him a smile. “I think we’ve got a pretty good excuse.”

“Which we can’t tell anyone,” Bitty says with a sigh. A moment later, he realizes what he’s just said. “I’m sorry, Jack. I didn’t mean to…”

“No, it’s fine. I know it’s asking a lot of you.” 

“It’s okay! Trust me, I know how to hide things.” Bitty offers it as a comfort, but his words seem to sober Jack. A long silence follows on the other end of the line. Bitty sits through it for several seconds, then can’t help but break it with a timid, “Jack?”

As though he’s just waking up, Jack takes in a breath, blinks, and focuses on Bitty. “Sorry. I got lost for a moment there.”

“Where did you go?”

Jack’s lips twitch. “I was thinking about Shitty.”

Not what Bitty was expecting, but all right. “What about him?”

“Just that if we were going to tell anyone, we could probably trust him.”

Panic floods Bitty’s nerves. “Jack. We can’t.”

“No, I know.” 

“It’s just that once we tell one person, I’ll want to tell everyone. I already do. My gosh, can you imagine the looks on everyone’s faces? Can you imagine what Shitty would say?”

“Probably something with four letters.” Jack laughs.

“What would we tell them? _How_ would we tell them?”

“Hm. I guess I’d probably have called Shitty last week sometime. Hah, I can just imagine how that would have gone. ‘Um, so. Shits. About Bittle.’”

Oh, Lord, Jack’s _roleplaying_. It’s adorable. Wait, does that mean Bitty has to play Shitty now? 

He sticks a finger in front of his nose to approximate a mustache. “Um… ‘What the fuck have you done to Bitty now, Zimmermann?’”

Jack takes a minute to laugh at his impression. “Sorry, Bits, but that was --”

Bitty gets into it. “‘I’m waiting, brah.’” Oh, dear. That word feels funny to say.

“All right, all right, _Shitty._ ” Jack suppresses another laugh. “Anyway. About Bittle. It turns out I like him.”

Bitty fights past the ripple of goosebumps at hearing it. “‘Well. How do you not like that kid. I mean, he’s handsome, he’s a great baker…’”

“No, Shits. I mean, I like him. I…” Jack’s eyes dart to the side. “I kissed him.”

“‘Really? No shit, brah, tell me more.’” Hey, Bitty does a good Shitty. Maybe he should audition for a play instead of playing hockey this year.

“Well, I kissed him. And we’ve been Skyping, a lot, and, Shits, he’s, um… he’s great.” 

Bitty’s not sure Jack’s still aware he’s roleplaying. At that last word, his gaze flickered back to Bitty’s, then went somewhere else entirely, somewhere faraway and… dreamy, for lack of a better word.  Dreamy’s also a good word for the smile on his face. Bitty stares, dropping his finger-mustache and his impression. “Great, huh?”

“Yeah,” Jack says softly. “Great. Just talking to him -- about anything or -- or nothing, or -- I just feel…”

“How?” Bitty’s voice is small, careful. “How do you feel?”

“Like I can do anything. Like everything’s great.” Jack pauses. “Like this was always supposed to happen.”

His eyes lock with Bitty’s, and there’s no question then whom he’s talking to. Bitty kind of wants to cry. “Jack. I feel the same way.”

“If I get down there in July I’m going to hold you so tight, Bits.”

“Get down here. Please, Jack.” Bitty leans forward, clasping his hands like he’s in prayer. 

“I’m gonna try.” 

And then they’re both lost, staring at each other -- stupidly, Bitty’s sure, but he doesn’t care, because it feels so good to look at Jack and feel Jack looking back at him and know they’re both smiling and thinking about what it’s going to be like when they can finally touch again. God, Bitty needs it to be tomorrow. He needs it to be today.

He lifts his hand toward the camera, like he could reach through the lens and caress Jack’s face. “Oh, honey,” he mumbles, but can’t think of another word.

Jack’s eyes close briefly. Bitty knows -- just _knows_ \-- that he’s accepting the touch, feeling it on his cheek. He studies Jack’s rapt face, tries to memorize every line. 

“Say, Bits,” Jack says softly. “What are the chances we could do this a little earlier tomorrow?”

“Oh. Um…”

“I thought we could try to have a real dinner date. You know. We could sit and eat and talk.”

Bitty’s mind whirls around the possibility. “That sounds amazing, I’d love to, but I don’t know, tomorrow’s Sunday and Sunday dinner is always--”

“Oh.” The barest shadow of a pout crosses Jack’s face. “Never mind, then. It was just a--”

“Dinner date, right? I’ll make it work.” Jack’s almost-pout has thrown Bitty into a full-blown panic. He doesn’t want Jack to look that disappointed. Ever. About anything. “I’ll make it happen! What time? Six? Seven?” 

“Bittle. It’s all right. We can do it another time.”

“No, Jack. Tomorrow night is fine. I’ll tell Mom-- I’ll tell her _something._ A team meeting. Group Skype. I’ll think of something.”

They swap a few more rounds of you-don’t-have-to/but-I-want-to, and Bitty eventually prevails. Never underestimate the persistence of a Southern gentleman with a dinner date on his mind. When they hang up, finally, Bitty runs to his closet. He needs to decide what to wear on his first ever formal dinner date with his brand-new boyfriend. Because there’s no way in hell he’s going to answer that call tomorrow in jeans and a T-shirt. 

If his mom bursts into his room and catches him in a dinner jacket… well, Bitty will just deal with that when the time comes. Some things are worth the risk.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> May 31.

It takes all day to convince his parents to let him skip Sunday dinner. Bitty starts early -- before church, even -- with a lie that he thinks is genius: a “virtual pizza party” with all his friends. Still, his mother doesn’t like the idea, and his father shakes his head as though disillusioned about Bitty’s entire generation.

So Bitty plays the sports card next. They went to Frozen Four two years in a row. But with their seniors having graduated, surely Coach understands the need to talk strategy and how they’re going to keep their streak going. Coach hems and haws a bit, but Mama doesn’t understand how come strategy has to happen during dinnertime.

By midafternoon, Bitty’s reduced to begging. “I’ll make the pot pie myself, Mama. All I want to do is take a piece up to my room instead of sitting at the table, just this once. Heck, I’ll make a batch of those cinnamon cookies. Just tonight, I promise.”

It takes until he promises to give up said cinnamon cookie recipe for Mama to relent. But Bitty is triumphant. He rushes upstairs with his steaming plate of chicken pot pie and a heap of vegetables cooked in butter, and hurriedly changes into a nicer shirt and jacket. Jack will probably be wearing a ratty T-shirt. But who cares. This is a big deal.

When Skype rings, Bitty feels it like the doorbell chiming on prom night. If his prom night were anything worth writing home about, that is. Jack’s just one click away, and then they’ll be off -- the date will be started, and there'll be no going back. He takes a hurried glance at himself in the mirror, smooths back his hair, and sits neatly at his desk, piping hot meal at the ready beside him, before pressing the button.

Oh. Oh, this must be what prom night is supposed to be like.

Jack is wearing a button-down shirt and a tie Bitty hasn’t seen before. It’s a shade of deep violet, and somehow it sets off his eyes just right. They’re cool ocean blue. “Hi,” he says. “You look nice.”

“Gosh, thanks. So do you.” Bitty lets himself smile. “Goodness, Jack, a tie. I was worried I’d be overdressed.”

“I wanted to do this right.” A soft crease of concern appears on Jack’s brow. “Is everything okay? Did your parents--”

“Oh, they’re fine. Well, not fine, exactly, but they accepted that I’m coming up to have a very important dinner discussion with my teammates.” Bitty bites his lip, giving Jack an apologetic shrug. Lying isn’t fun, no matter how necessary it is.

“And what’s for dinner?”

“Chicken pot pie.”

Jack gives a little groan. “That sounds better than what I’ve got.” He lifts a plate -- boring-looking chicken breast and broccoli that certainly was _not_ cooked in butter.

“You poor deprived soul. If I could feed you through the screen, I would.”

“I’m sure you would.” Jack’s eyes dance with amusement. “Anyway, shall we?”

They eat for a few minutes in relative silence. The pot pie is as good as it smells, warm creamy and hearty flavors melding on Bitty’s tongue. How he wishes he really could feed it to Jack. How can a man eat a meal with no carbohydrates at all and keep upright?

He catches Jack’s gaze, then they both look away. “Heh… I’m nervous,” he says.

“Tell me about yourself,” says Jack.

Bitty blinks. Once, and then again, harder. “What?”

Jack shrugs. “It’s our first dinner date. So. Tell me about yourself.”

“But you already know me.”

“I don’t know everything. So start from the beginning.” In Jack’s gaze is an interest so keen, Bitty feels like he’s under a spotlight.

“Gosh,” he fumbles, “I don’t-- I wouldn’t even know where to begin. I’m, um… wait, am I supposed to tell you what you already know?”

Jack chews thoughtfully, swallows, and answers. “Sure. Pretend I don’t know anything.”

Bitty takes a deep breath .“Well. I’m from Georgia. Oh, gosh, I feel silly.”

But Jack just nods. “Go on.”

“Um. I’m from Georgia originally. I just said that. Oh, no.” Bitty’s mind whirls blankly for a moment, and then it comes to him. He already has a ready-made starter: It’s the introduction to his vlog. At the start of every video, he runs a pre-taped introduction: _My name is Eric Bittle. I’m just a Southern boy with two passions: skating and baking._

He flashes a smile at Jack and repeats the second sentence. Jack perks up. “Tell me about skating. When did you start?”

Bitty answers by happily prattling for a good few minutes about the Winter Olympics he saw when he was little, how he dreamed of snow and ice and the leaps and graceful glides of the skaters until his parents finally gave in and brought him to a rink. He tells Jack what he doesn’t remember, but what Mama always says: that he took to those skates like a fish to water, and that she nearly fainted when he happily zoomed around the rink without needing so much as a held hand. “And from then on it was coaches and competitions and, you know, I was good but I wasn’t _that_ good, not when it came to national competition. Oh, let me tell you, I had a few low days when I realized I wasn’t ever gonna go to the Winter Olympics. Everybody in the neighborhood got a pie that week.”

Jack chuckles. “So you were baking back then, too?”

“Oh, Lord, you know it! I learned to bake at my Mama’s knee. There’s pictures of me somewhere in this old house with a tiny little baby apron and flour all over my little baby face.”

“I need to see those pictures.”

A hunk of pot pie falls from Bitty’s fork. “Oh, no. No baby pictures. Forget it. I was such a big chubby baby.”

“I _definitely_ need to see them, then. I can show you mine.”

“...I’ve already seen you as a baby.”

This gets a little gasp out of Jack. “When?”

“I.. um… Googled your dad. Don’t be mad! It was the beginning of freshman year, and I didn’t know who he was, so….”

“You didn’t?”

“No, I had no idea until halfway through pre-season when--”

“Hm. That actually explains a lot.”

Jack’s pensive look baffles Bitty. “It does? Wait, what’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, nothing.” But Jack’s smiling now, the kind of smile that’s hard to wipe off his face, and despite himself Bitty has to grin too. “Tell me more about figure skating.”

By the time they’re done with their meals, Bitty is pretty sure he’s told Jack every detail of his childhood hobbies short of his locker combinations. “Oh, Lord, I’ve talked my way through the whole dinner!” he laments. “You should never have let me go on that long! How dare you?”

“It was interesting.” Jack dabs at his lips with a napkin. “But now we’re out of food.”

“If we were really out to dinner,” Bitty points out, “we could order some dessert and keep talking.”

“Or we could go for a walk after dinner,” Jack says.

Naturally, Jack would opt for exercise rather than sweets. “Oh. Yes. Um, we could.”

“There are some nice streets up here. I think you’d like them.”

“Really?” Now the exercise option is starting to look up. Jack has thought about what Bitty would think of Providence’s streets. That’s… heartening, in a way and for a reason Bitty can’t pinpoint. His heart feels like an expanding balloon.

“Yeah.” There’s a wistful edge to Jack’s voice. “I think it would be fun, walking around Providence with you. On a nice night like this. We could just go out and-- walk together.”

“Jack---” That ballooning feeling in Bitty’s gut grows until his whole body is tingling with it. His imagination goes wild. Strolling down a scenic Providence street with Jack in early summer.  Talking about everything and nothing, a bare whisper apart.  Jack smiling down at him. The two of them laughing at some shared joke. And then -- just _maybe --_ pausing under a streetlight on an abandoned corner, Jack’s hands falling into his -- even, in his ecstatic imagination, a stolen kiss --

“Bits.” A soft voice.

Bitty tries to return to himself. “Oh, gosh, Jack, I’m sorry. I just--”

“Don’t be sorry.” There’s a gravel-rough edge to Jack’s voice, something like pain under his words.  “Wherever you were just now… I was there, too.”

The sweet, biting twinge of Bitty’s heart! He clasps a hand to his chest. Sometimes this boy just leaves him aching in the best way.

“So.” Jack’s glowing somehow.  “What happens after our after-dinner walk?”

“Well.” Bitty racks his brain, but Jack’s words have intoxicated him, and his mind just isn’t working the way it should. “I guess… I walk you to your door. I tell you I had a great time tonight.”

“So did I. So do you want to come in for a while?” The words send heat swooping down into Bitty’s gut. How does Jack manage to be both so innocent and so dangerous at once?

“My goodness, Jack, it’s only our first date,” he teases. “I’d better just head home.”

“Oh, all right.” Jack tries in vain to hide his smile with a pout. “It’s just… aren’t we in Providence? We were walking down the street, and now you’re at my door, so…”

“Um.” Bitty doesn’t know what this means. “Um, sure, we can be in Providence?”

“Because,” Jack says, and fuck, there’s that grin sliding over his face, Bitty’s in trouble now… “if we’re in Providence, _you’re staying with me.”_

The words, and all they imply, sink into Bitty in an instant. Heat isn’t even the right word to describe the bright flare that consumes his body. It’s not just heat, it’s flame. He’s on fire.

If they were in the same room, Bitty knows, he’d be up against a wall, being kissed within an inch of his life. He can see it in Jack’s eyes, the intent and the desire, burning through him. And he can feel Jack’s hands on him, against the skin of his neck and through the cloth at his hip. He can taste Jack’s lips on his. Bitty closes his eyes and groans aloud.

“ _Bits,_ ” Jack murmurs. “Don’t make that _noise._ ” He sounds wrecked. And now Bitty knows what Jack means when he says he was wherever Bitty had been. Bitty’s sucked into Jack’s fantasy now, a helpless witness to a dream that isn’t his -- or isn’t all his. They’re both there, just inside the doorway to Jack’s apartment, touching and kissing like they can’t get enough. Bitty can feel it, feel how badly Jack wants it too, and it’s beyond exhilarating. The moment could only be more perfect if the touches were real.

His heart is pounding. Bitty struggles to break himself free, to regulate his breathing. “ _God_ , Jack,” he manages, and his voice sounds weak and rough, like -- well, like he’s just been kissing. “I don’t know-- I don’t know how we’re going to do this. I don’t know how I wait a whole month to see you.”

“I know.” Jack’s breaths are coming short, too. “God, I know, Bits.”

“I want to-- I want things,” Bitty says, knowing he’s probably being too needy, too clingy, too _something_ , but his heart is being squeezed out through his chest and he doesn’t know what to do but to talk. “I want so many things I can’t have for a whole month, and that’s if you make it down here for the Fourth, and if you don’t, I think I’m going to _explode_.”

Jack nods. He inhales deeply, forces the air out through his nostrils, and swallows. “Maybe,” he starts, “maybe we have to rethink this. Think about how we can-- about what we can do like this, instead of thinking about what we could do if we were closer.”

“I don’t know what that means, how, what can we do like this?”

“I’m not sure. I guess we should think about it.”

That doesn’t make any sense to Bitty either, but he nods and tries to calm down. “Okay. Think about it, right, okay.”

“And I’m going to get an answer about the Fourth. Tomorrow, I’m going to see what I can do.”

Bitty’s heart clenches. “Okay.”

“Maybe we should say good night now. You know. To keep from…”

“From what?”

Jack shakes his head. “I don’t know.”

A laugh escapes Bitty’s lips. “I don’t know either, but Lord, Jack… I think I’m in big trouble.”

“I know the feeling. Sleep well, Bits.”

Bitty sighs and offers Jack a fond smile. “You too, honey.” He ends the call.

He gets what Jack means, he thinks. About trying to figure out what they can do as they are, instead of fixating on how they’re apart and what they could do if they were closer. There’s plenty they can do and be to each other without physically touching. They can share stories, thoughts, dreams. They can grow to know each other so well that there’s barely daylight between their souls. They just can’t touch, and with all the good times they’ve already spent without touching, it’s almost silly that it should matter so much now. It should be easy to put that piece of it aside for just a little while longer.

But Bitty still goes to sleep craving that good night kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> phew, this one was a bear! expect a shorter one tomorrow.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lol this one is crap. I may skip tomorrow just to spend some time working on actual narrative structure.

Jack calls early -- at 7 p.m., a good hour and a half before they've gotten used to calling. Bitty only has to take one look at his face to know it's good news. "I checked, and it's okay," Jack says. "I'll have to come down early Saturday and fly back late Sunday, but I can come down. Do I fly right into Atlanta, or is there a closer airport?"

Bitty swallows, grins wide enough to swallow the world, and nods. "That's right. Oh, my gosh, I'm so excited."

"Me, too." Jack's voice glides legato over the words, like they're spilling forth unbidden. And his face. His _smile_.

"Jack Zimmermann, you are grinning like a fool," Bitty teases, but if Jack feels anything close to the way Bitty does right now, Bitty can hardly blame him. It's like his body's full of warm chocolate, everything liquid and sweet. Jack will be here. In his house. In his room. In his arms, and it'll only be a month and a few days. The moment is so close, Bitty can reach out and touch it.

“I’m going to see you,” Jack says, simply.

“Oh my gosh, Jack. We’re going to have to be so careful. My parents, they don’t know--” he waves a hand. “Anything.”

“We’ll manage.”

“But let me tell you something, mister, the minute I get you alone--” Bitty starts with gusto, but then he comes to himself, stopping abruptly on the edge of the thought. They’ve just decided to try not to focus so much on what they would do if they were closer together. And granted, this is more like what they _will_ do when they _are_ closer together, but it seems contrary to the spirit somehow. Bitty quiets, sitting back and licking his lips nervously.

Jack, for his part, doesn’t even seem to notice Bitty’s discomfort. “I’m going to see you,” he repeats, and the way he says the words makes them feel brand-new.

* * *

They talk as they usually do -- Jack tells Bitty about practice, Bitty lets Jack know the goings on in Madison (“Mama says Sally Lane has been spending an awful lot of time with the preacher’s son!”) and they both dissect what happened on the group chat that day.  Ransom has headed back up to Canada after a week at Holster’s place, and the two of them are trying to one-up each other with crazy family stories. Chowder is absolutely certain that this season the Sharks are going to make it to the final next season. Shitty’s had it up to hear with Cambridge’s pretentious establishments. Et cetera, ad nauseum.

And then they reach a point when they just… stare.

“Um,” says Bitty, scratching his head.

“Ah,” is Jack’s response.

A nervous grin finds its way to Bitty’s face. “Did we… just run out of things to say?”

“No,” Jack responds reflexively. “We just…”

The idea is so preposterous, Bitty can’t help but laugh. “We did! Oh, Lord, we’re having an awkward silence! Look at us, with nothing to say. I feel thirteen again, out back of the school with Chris Turner, tripping all over my tongue.”

“You seem to be doing fine,” Jack notes slyly.

“Oh, you wouldn’t understand! You’ve made a career out of saying nothing. We could probably sit here on Skype for hours and just stare at each other like zombies, and you’d be perfectly happy.”

“I probably would.” There’s something teasing in that turn of phrase, too, and the way Jack’s accent tips the R on its side and deepens the vowels. Bitty feels uncomfortably warm.

“Anyway.” He flaps a hand nervously. “Silence needs filling! I just can’t sit still in silence at all. Lectures, _God._ At least the professor’s talking. But tests? Kill me. I want to go out of my skin. That’s why I always have music when I’m baking. Or doing anything, really.  You know why those checking clinics used to creep me out? Not just the checking part. There was no sound. It was you and me and that big old rink and _nothing,_ until you came up out of nowhere and slammed me against the boards. I mean, at least figure skating had background music...”

“Bits.” Jack’s half-laughing.

“What?”

“There’s a _reason_ you’re not used to silence.”

“Really? What is--” Bitty then realizes he’s being chirped. He sticks his tongue out. “Nyah to you, Mr. Zimmermann.”

“And who’s this Chris Turner kid? Should I be jealous?”

Bitty pinks a little. “Oh, gosh. He’s not even-- _no_ , Jack, you have nothing to be jealous of.”

“Really?” Jack’s arching his eyebrow in that way that has Bitty sitting a little stiffly, wary of whatever subtle jab is coming next. “The way I see it, you’re back in your hometown with all your old crushes. I should be very worried.”

“Jaaaack.” Bitty scowls as darkly as he can. “First of all, even if any of my old crushes turned out to have the slightest interest in men, which as a by-the-way they never did, I can pretty much categorically say that your current position in my life isn’t in a terrible lot of trouble. Second of all, this is you trying to get me to talk about my old crushes, and don’t think I haven’t forgotten that I spilled nearly half my life story to you yesterday.”

“Meaning what?” Jack’s eyeing him suspiciously.

“Meaning, maybe it’s not me who needs to learn to get used to silence. Maybe it’s you who needs to learn to fill it.” Bitty leans forward, and his own wicked smile knocks Jack’s teasing expression right off his face. “Come on, Jack. Time to tell me a little something about _you._ ”

Oh. Oh, that delightfully blank expression. Jack never saw it coming. “About me?”

“Yes, about you. It’s your turn, don’t you think?”

“I-- but _what_ about me?”

“Well, just for starters.” Bitty folds his hands, clasping them under his chin. “What were you like as a child?”

Jack’s eyes dart from side to side like  he’s anticipating a sneak attack. “Well. Um. You know. I was always just a ‘hockey robot.’”

Bitty tsks. “Jack. Now I know _that’s_ not true.”

“It is, though. Kind of. I don’t even remember the first time I played. I was in a league in first grade. Maybe even before that. I went to school and I played hockey. That was… pretty much my whole life.”

“No. There had to be _something_ more than that.”

“Not really.” Jack’s expression darkens slightly. But a moment later he seems fine. Maybe Bitty imagined it.

“Well, you had friends, right?”

“I had teammates. And…” He glowers at some point beyond the camera. The illumination of his desk lamp catches his jaw at an angle, plunging half of Jack’s face into shadow. “And people I _thought_ were friends.”

There’s no question who he’s talking about. Bitty bites his lip. He hadn’t meant to go there. That’s the _last_ place he meant to go.

“Um.” He scrambles for another topic. “What-- what about photography? Talk to me about that.”

It takes Jack a moment to redirect his thoughts. He shakes his head. “Sorry, Bits. I got distracted for a moment.”

“It’s no problem, Jack. I was only -- I didn’t mean to pry.”

“I’m sure you must be wondering about it. But it’s hard for me to talk about.”

“No, Jack. I don’t need to know.  Don’t worry about it.” Doesn’t _need_ to know, but Bitty can’t deny that he _wants_ to. He still remembers that night, sometimes, and wonders. What happened behind that closed door? What did Kent Parson do that made Jack -- unflappable Jack Zimmermann, captain of the hockey team and campus celebrity -- shake like a leaf?

Bitty’s dying to know, really. But it’s not something he’s got any right to ask about. Not now. It will have to be Jack who makes the leap to tell him. Bitty knows he needs to earn that. He hopes he will, someday. But he’s okay with it being not now.

“So,” he says timidly. “About photography.”

“Right.” Jack takes in a sucking breath. “When I was little, we had this coffee table book. Big, gigantic book. _Perspectives on Canada_ , it was called. It was full of photographs, not just landscapes but people. All different kinds of people that I guess were supposed to represent the population of Canada.  I used to go through it, cover to cover. I had my favorite photographs, and the ones I hated and always skipped over. But my favorites -- I’d sit there and look at them for hours.”

Bitty pictures a studious, small Jack, flipping through a book bigger than his head, his eyes landing on certain photos and studying their every tiny detail. The image tickles him, and he has to fight down a giggle.

“And I never really understood,” Jack goes on, “why I liked the ones I did. I still don’t, I guess. But the class kind of helped with that. My semester project was, ah--” He scratches the side of his head. “Eye-opening.”

“I loved your photos,” Bitty says.

“I took a lot of you.”

Damn it, is there going to be a _single_ night Jack doesn’t make Bitty blush? “What?”

“I didn’t realize it until my classmates pointed it out, actually. I thought I was just taking pictures of the team. But it turns out I did take a lot of pictures of you. I’m surprised you didn’t notice.”

Bitty noticed himself in the pictures, sure, but he didn’t keep a running tally of who was in which. And he’s sure he never saw _all_ the photos from Jack’s project. “So wait, they told you that I was in a lot of pictures?”

“Yeah.”

“And? What did you say?”

Jack shrugs. “At the time, I just said you were around a lot. But… I guess the camera doesn’t lie, even when you’re the one behind it.” He gives a rueful smile.

Bitty does his best not to melt into a puddle of butterscotch on his comforter. “Jack, you keep saying things like that, I’ll--”

“Things like what?”

Oh, _bless_ Jack Zimmermann and his cluelessness. He doesn’t even know when he’s being romantic. “Never mind. Are you going to keep taking pictures? Oh, Jack, you should start an Instagram! Wait, didn’t Ransom try to set one up for you before?”

“I think so? Maybe?” Clueless Jack isn’t going away anytime soon, apparently. “I couldn’t figure out how to download the pictures.”

“Oh, _bless your heart_.”

“Um, thank you.” Yep, Clueless Jack is here to stay. “But we’re supposed to stay off social media until we go through training. Which is probably good, because I don’t know how to work any of it anyway.”

Horrific visions of unintentional crotch shots dance through Bitty’s head. “I take it all back. Instagram is a _terrible_ idea.”

“I never thought I’d hear you say that.”

Bitty laughs. “I know when I’m licked!”

Clueless Jack changes to Dangerous Jack in a hot second. “You do, do you?”

“Jack! _Please_!”

“Just trying to fill the silence. Somebody told me I should do more of that.”

Bitty crosses his arms over his chest and pouts. There is just no winning tonight.

  
But there are no more awkward silences, either.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June 3.

Bitty’s very disappointed in last night’s call.

Not Jack’s fault, of course -- in fact, it's really _all_ Bitty's fault -- but it was much less like a Skype date and much more like a Skype check-in. Jack had texted Bitty at about 6 to say he was stuck at a team meeting and wouldn’t be back until late. While he managed to get Bitty on the line at about 11:30 p.m., Bitty was already in bed and half-asleep. He mumbled a “hi, hello, how was your meeting, ‘m going back to bed now, goodnight sweetheart” and was out like a light again within thirty seconds.

Which was a shame, considering all he’d prepared.

Well, nothing is going to stop him from putting all that preparation to good use tonight. Not even the first game of the finals. Bitty texts frantically with the whole group all the way through the game, shouts murderous rage when Chicago comes from behind to win (yes, they’re all still bitter about Chicago not courting Jack despite _his father being on the roster for several years_ ), and then heads up to his room because he is _not_ going to bed tonight until he has asked Jack Zimmermann twenty questions.

* * *

“Ask me what?”

“Twenty questions. Well, there’s a hundred on the list, but I thought we’d start with twenty. Or, you know, however many we get through before we both fall asleep.”

“There’s a list?”

“There’s a whole bunch of lists! After the other night, I was thinking to myself, I am so _done_ with awkward silences. So I Googled ‘questions to get to know someone’ and I came up with all of these crazy lists. Some of the questions are pretty ridiculous, to be perfectly honest, but some of them sound fun.” Bitty grins nervously. “What do you think? Are you up for answering some questions? Just for fun.”

“Like a game?” Jack’s expression is… somewhere between wary and amused. Bitty isn’t sure how to feel about it.

“Sure,” he says carefully. “Like a game.”

Jack settles back in his chair and crosses his arms over his chest. “All right. Go ahead.”

“Okay, well, um…” All at once Bitty’s sure this is a terrible idea, far worse than a thousand awkward silences. He swallows his anxiety. “Let’s start easy. This or that. Coke or Pepsi?”

The little furrow in Jack’s brow deepens. “I don’t drink a lot of soda.”

“But when you _do_?”

“I don’t know. Whatever the restaurant has.”

“What about when you buy... oh, you never do buy soda, do you? Never mind. But as a Georgia native, I should let you know, the right answer is Coke.”

Deeper still goes that crease in his brow. “There are right answers?”

“No. Oh, my gosh, never mind. Um… lions or tigers?”

“When would I have to choose between a lion and a tiger?”

“It’s a _game_.”

“All right. I suppose lions, then.”

“Great. Why?”

“Wait, I have to tell you _why?_ ”

Bitty cocks his head and frowns. “That’s the whole point. It’s so we get to know each other.”

“We’ve known each other for two years, Bittle.”

And Bitty’s about to apologize, and cede that this was a terrible idea, and maybe slink into a hole in shame. But just at the end of his last word, Jack lets slip a tiny, wicked smile.

He might as well have chartered a plane to write the word _Chirp_ into the skies above Bitty’s house. Bitty scowls. “Jack Laurent _Zimmermann._ You’re being _difficult._ ” Jack’s smile widens, and he shrugs -- a silent plea of guilty. Bitty huffs. “Just answer the question. Why lions?”

“Good question.” Jack’s smile softens, from mischievous into pensive. “I like the way they take care of each other. They protect their own.”

“Spoken like a true captain.” Bitty relaxes. This is more along the lines of what he was expecting. “Okay. Um, beaches or mountains?”

This pulls a few seconds of confused silence from Jack. “I…. don’t know,” he says. “I don’t have much experience with either.”

“Well, suppose you got to go on a trip, and you had to pick one,” Bitty prods. “Where would you rather go?”

Jack shakes his head. “I don’t know,” he says again. “Mountains? Because… landscapes. But then, the ocean…”. He sounds and looks utterly puzzled, and he’s staring at Bitty as though Bitty’s got the correct answer concealed somewhere. “This is a hard question.”

“Good. They’re supposed to make you think.”

“Do I get to ask you a question now?”

Oh, that would be only fair. “Sure!”

Jack promptly gets _that look_ on his face. Bitty cringes.

“So… boxers or briefs, Bittle?”

 _There_ it is. “First of all, Mr. Zimmermann, you already _know_ the answer to that question! And second--”

But Bitty can’t think of a second, because Jack is laughing -- as hard as Bitty’s ever seen Jack laugh. It’s not loud, the way the guys chortle at the TV, or raucous, like at a kegster. But Jack’s grin is ear to ear, and he’s covering his brow with one hand and hunched forward and _shaking._

Bitty takes it back. This wasn’t a terrible idea at all. The whole exercise is worth it for this moment alone.

He snorts. “That’s it, we’re going on to harder questions now. Oh, here’s a fun one.”

“I really don’t think it’s fair that you’re asking me all the questions.” Jack’s still fighting down giggles. Bitty wants to memorize his face as it is right now, all creases and lines and joy beaming out everywhere. He really doesn’t think he’s ever seen Jack quite like this, so unabashedly comfortable and amused. It’s beautiful. Jack’s beautiful. And if Bitty doesn’t watch himself, Jack’s laughter is going to make _him_ cry.

He looks down at his notebook. “ _Anyway._ What things would you take with you if you were stranded on a desert island? Oh, and a boat doesn’t count.”

Jack’s expression devolves into that unique shade of confused he manages so well. “If I’m stranded on a desert island?”

“Yeah, nobody’s ever asked you that one?” Bitty thought it was a pretty standard question.

“If I’m stranded, how do I choose what I’d take with me?”

“Are you chirping me again?”

“No!” Jack leans on the word. “I just don’t understand how I’m stranded and I get to take things with me--”

“Oh, Lord! Here, I’ll tell you what I’d bring, just as a for-instance. I’d take suntan lotion, because hoo boy do I burn. Oh, and I’d bring my phone with me because even if there’s no 4G on this island, _hello_ , I _need_ my music. And--”

“--What happens when you run out of battery?”

“Jack, take this seriously!”

“I am. What do you do?”

“I plug it into a _palm tree_ , stop asking me silly questions.”

“How is that any sillier than the original question?”

“Jack!”

Bitty kind of wants to explode with joy right now. Jack’s being his usual snarky self, yes, but he’s having a good time. It’s there in the glow of his face, in the soft lift of his voice under his words. All this from Jack “one expression, one tone of voice” Zimmermann. And to think there was a time when Jack only ever scowled at him.

“Going on,” Bitty decides. “First childhood memory?”

“Hockey practice, first grade,” Jack says, flatly, but then he frowns. “No, that’s not right. I remember my mother putting me to bed one night, after we stayed up to watch my dad play.  She, um.” He licks his lips. “She carried me to bed, and she was singing.” His head bobs up and down slightly, as though to the rhythm of the lullaby. “I remember the moon through my window, and her singing. That’s all.”

“Aww.” Bitty curls his shoulders forward, like he could snuggle up to the screen. “That’s a nice memory.”

“Yeah.” Jack nods. “It’s pretty nice, as they go.” Something flickers by in his expression, a fleeting shadow. But it’s gone before Bitty can recognize it. “What about you?”

“Me? Gosh.” Bitty searches his memory. “I think the furthest back I can remember is Christmastime, when I was three or four, maybe? Sometime before I was in school. It was in our old house, and everything smelled like ginger. Even the tree. I was standing by the tree with a gingerbread cookie in my hand, smelling it, and thinking it smelled like Christmas.” He gives a happy sigh. “To this day I can’t make gingerbread without hearing sleigh bells.”

“That’s nice.” Jack is looking at Bitty in a way that makes Bitty want to blush and duck. “I want to try your gingerbread this year.”

Bitty tries to form a response, but his lips are trembling. The implication, the invitation in those words -- _I want us to be together at Christmas_ \-- is heating him up like a lantern.

“Is there another question?” Jack asks.

“Um.” Flustered, Bitty looks down at his notes. “Um, what’s your number one dream? Besides the Stanley Cup, I guess.”

The caveat knocks Jack off his game, and he frowns for a long time. “It’s… a little strange, actually. I don’t know if I can say it in words.”

“Well, that sounds interesting!”

“Don’t laugh at me, Bittle.” Bitty expects a scowl to follow those words, but they don’t. Jack’s face is curiously blank. After another moment of silence, he goes on. “I don’t think it’s something I can name, It’s not-- a fancy house, or three kids. It’s more like a feeling. I dream about feeling… okay.”

Something small and sad curls inside Bitty’s heart. “You don’t feel okay?”

“I do. I’m okay,” Jack hastens to assure him. “But….” He shakes his head, very slowly. “There’s a different kind of okay, and I’m not there. Yet. I’m getting closer.”

Bitty watches him take in a long breath, watches it shake out in a sigh again. He aches to touch Jack’s shoulder or smooth down his hair. To give him something in touch and closeness that Bitty can’t quite figure out how to give him in words. His lips form around Jack’s name, but no sound comes out.

“Now it’s your turn,” Jack says after a beat. “What’s your dream?”

“Oh, well.” Bitty forces cheer back to his face. “Did you know there is a place in Brooklyn that serves pies for breakfast? I read about it in a magazine.”

“Really.” A lazy, interested smile sprawls across Jack’s face. “So that’s your dream? To serve pies for breakfast?”

“Well, to serve them _all day…_ ” Bitty pauses, frowning, index finger in mid-point. “No, you know what? That’s what I _was_ going to say. A little cafe somewhere. But… I think my real dream’s more like yours, Jack. It’s a feeling. I dream of…” He searches for words. “I dream of getting up in the morning and doing my thing all day and going to bed at night, and being totally, one hundred percent _me_ the whole time.”

Jack chuckles softly. “You’re always one hundred percent you.”

“Well, at Samwell, I kinda _can_ be, you know? But I mean everywhere. Anywhere. No more hiding, no more pretending, no more apologies. No worrying about what anybody else thinks. Just being _me._ Being Bitty. And that being totally okay.”

Jack doesn’t answer. Bitty blinks. “Um. Sorry. Was that weird?”

He peers at the screen. Jack’s unmoving, staring, his eyes gentle and wide.

“Jack?” Bitty starts.

“That’s it.”

Soft, low, almost inaudible. Bitty cranes toward the speaker. “What?”

“That’s it. Those are the words.”  

And, oh, dear lord, the way Jack smiles at him then. Bitty’s heart does a somersault in his chest.

“That’s what I want too,” Jack says. “To be who I am. And that being… okay.”

“Oh, Jack.” Bitty blinks mist out of his eyes. “I think who you are is _plenty_ okay.”

They may be smiling at each other like a pair of goofballs right now. Bitty’s not sure. He does know that his face is starting to hurt a little.

“ _And_ ,” Jack adds with a sly smile, “I want to eat pie for breakfast every day.”

And just like that, the chirping starts up again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have totally been to the pie-for-breakfast place in Brooklyn and it is awesome. (Apologies if it is a wider trend that I have somehow missed.)


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June 4.

It’s a moment before Bitty notices it, but there’s something funny about the way Jack’s sitting. “What’s that?” he asks, and Jack shifts uncomfortably and pulls out an ice pack that’s been wedged between his back and the chair.

“It was a hard practice,” Jack says by way of explanation. “I wish I were on vacation until August, like the vets are.”

“No, you don’t. You’d be so depressed if you had to go two whole months without practice.”

Jack smiles ruefully. “Tell that to my ribs.”

“Aw. If I were there, I’d--” Bitty stops. They’ve agreed to stop using that phrase. Even if it’s only to say _if I were there, I’d bring you some Advil._ There’s nothing to be done about the fact that they’re apart, so there’s no use dwelling on it.

Jack doesn’t seem to notice, though. “Maybe you’re right. What would I do with all that time?”

“You know, that’s a good question.” Bitty stretches out on his bed, reaching down to touch his toes. “What would you do if you had all that time off? Go on vacation somewhere?”

“Is this more of your beaches-or-mountains questions?”

“Oh, no! Nothing like that. It’s just, you always went to prospect camps during your summers, right? So what are you going to do in the off season? It’s not like you have to get a job or anything. What do you think you might do with all that time?”

A grimace from Jack. “Let me get through a season first. Let me get through _tonight_ first.”

“Aw, but don’t you want something to look forward to? Once you’ve won the Stanley Cup and all?” Bitty can’t help teasing a little. “I’d think it’d be nice to have a little reward in your sights.”

Jack shifts again, positioning the ice beneath his back. “Ow,” is his only response.

“Maybe we should just hang up. You should go to bed and rest.”

“No.” Jack’s voice is emphatic. Bitty peers at him curiously.  “I, um. I wanted to tell you something.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. About yesterday.”

Now Bitty’s curiosity is well and truly piqued. But there’s something about Jack’s tone of voice that rattles his nerves, too. He tries to stay lighthearted. “Did you decide what you want on your desert island?”

“No. I just…” Jack sighs. “I wanted you to know, I _am_ okay.”

Bitty stares at him a moment. The words from yesterday fly through his mind: _I dream about feeling… okay._ Jack’s wistful tone makes him ache a little, even now. “Oh, honey,” he says. “I know you are! I knew what you meant.”

But his words don’t seem to do much to relax Jack. He looks at Bitty with serious eyes. “I’m not sure… how much you know. About me.”

Heart starting to accelerate, Bitty searches for an answer that won’t be awkward. “I’m not really sure what you mean. You said it yesterday, we’ve known each other for two whole years.”

“I mean, what you know about … what happened to me. Before.”

Bitty’s hands fly to his mouth. He’s never asked, he’s never even _thought_ of asking. “You don’t have to tell me anything,” he says. “Not a single thing, Jack. It’s your business.”

A pained expression crosses Jack’s face, and Bitty feels awful. Was that the wrong answer? Jack takes in a long breath. “I want to tell you some things,” he says, his voice deliberate, leaning on the consonants. “But I don’t know how much you already know.”

Bitty licks his lips nervously. “You mean… about the draft, right?” Jack nods. “I only know what I read when I Googled you that first time. I know you were supposed to .. and you didn’t, and that … that you had a problem.” It’s as much as he can say out loud. The words _overdose_ and _drug abuse_ won’t get anywhere near his throat. Much less the headlines. _Wunderkind Zimmermann spotted in rehab. Hockey’s First Family marred by tragedy._

“Yeah, that.” Jack says. “But what I want to say is… there was a reason for it.”

“A reason?” Bitty frowns. He’s not sure what he’s about to hear.

Shifting, Jack adjusts the ice pack. “Tuesday afternoons,” he says.

“Hm?”

“Tuesday afternoons, after practice. You all walked back and I never came. I don’t know if you noticed.”

Bitty had noticed, but he always figured Jack had a late afternoon class, or that he stayed behind to talk to the coaches. “And?” he asks, out of lack of any other words to say.

“And, I didn’t walk back with you boys because… I had an appointment.” He pauses. “A doctor’s appointment.”

It takes Bitty a minute. At first, he thinks Jack means some kind of physical therapy, or sports medicine clinic. Maybe a nutritionist. It doesn’t seem un-Jack-like to have some ridiculous, over-the-top regimen to maintain his health. But that’s no reason for Jack to be acting this nervous. So Bitty starts from the beginning. Jack’s telling him about the reason he ended up in rehab. It has something to do with a doctor’s appointment, every Tuesday, regularly…

And then it dawns. “Therapy?” he says, afraid of getting it wrong.

Jack nods. “I think the name is generalized anxiety disorder. The medicine I took… I still take it, actually. That’s why…” He trails off.

“Oh.” Bitty’s processing all this as fast as he can. A handful of images run through his mind. Jack out on the loading dock outside Faber, his head in his hands. Jack listening to a replay, his hands white-knuckled around his stick. Jack out in the Reading Room, insomniac. Jack paralyzed, shaking, as an old friend left him with harsh words. “Oh, I see.”

“Yeah. I wanted to at least tell you.”

“It makes sense,” Bitty says carefully. “I mean, I could tell you got … nervous, sometimes.”

“Really?” Jack half-smiles, but the smile is rueful. “I thought I hid it pretty well.”

“Oh, you did, you did! I just… paid a little bit more attention to you than everyone else, I guess.”

“You did?” Jack’s eyebrows arch upward. It’s a cute look.

Bitty flushes. “Well. I _did_ kind of have a crush on you, you know.”

“You…” Jack looks like he’s pondering taking this conversation in an entirely new direction. But the mischievous glint drops out of his eyes, and he settles for an “I see.”

“But... you shouldn’t feel bad about it!” Bitty hurries to fill in the silence that follows. “I don’t think anybody else noticed.  And even if they did, I don’t think that’d be a bad thing! We’re your friends.”

Jack’s brows are drawn in tight. “I was the captain. I think a captain should be strong.”

“Oh, _gosh,_ Jack!” Bitty’s heart nearly explodes with a wealth of concern and affection. “Having anxiety doesn’t make you weak! If anything, I think it makes you stronger. I mean, you were dealing with all that and you still played like you played? And you led all of us? I think that’s amazing.”

He quiets, sitting back, unsure if he’s said too much. But Jack looks just a little bit more relaxed now, and there’s a small smile tugging at his lips. “Thanks, Bittle,” he says.

“No, no, thank you for telling me!” And then inspiration hits. “Hey, can I tell _you_ something now?”

“Of course.”

Bitty takes a breath. “Mine were Friday morning,” he says.

Jack doesn’t put two and two together. “Your what?”

“My appointments.”

He’s still not following. “Your… appointments?”

“Yeah.” Bitty reaches for his stuffed bunny and plays with its ears as he talks. “I actually haven’t told anyone this. But.. at the beginning of the year, Coaches Hall and Murray had me start talking to someone. Because of … my checking thing.”

Jack’s silent for a while, and his tone is a little dark when he does speak. “Oh. I see. That makes sense.”

Bitty panics. “Not-- not that you didn’t help me! You did! But when I got back after not playing for a while… well, you remember how I played at the beginning of the year. So this kind of helped too. Especially since you didn’t have as much time to help me this year.”

“Bittle. It’s okay.” Jack nods. “I was surprised, that’s all. I’m glad you got help. You, um…” He shifts again, finds another angle for the ice, groans a bit. “You improved a lot this year.”

Bitty winces in sympathy as the pain flickers across Jack’s face. “You really did help me, a lot,” he says. “Last year and this year, too. I really do appreciate it, Jack. I don’t know if I’ve ever said, but I do. Thanks.”

Jack settles back onto the ice pack. He grimaces slightly, then his expression relaxes. “I’m glad,” is all he says.

“Honey, you look like you’re in so much pain.” Bitty wants to lift a hand and smooth down his hair, rub his shoulders, anything. It’s not like he hasn’t dealt with athletes in distress before (oh, lord, Holster’s charley horses were agonizing from the sound of them), but it’s the first time one of them has been his _boyfriend_ , and it’s a totally different feeling. “Why don’t you just go and rest for the night?”

Jack gives him an apologetic smile. “Do you mind?”

“Of course not! What did I just say? Go lie down and take care of that back.”

“Thanks, Bits.” Bitty gets a little thrill -- it’s been _Bittle_ all night, so the _Bits_ is especially nice to hear.

Jack reaches forward, as though preparing to hang up, but he pauses, then withdraws his hand. “About off season,” he says. “I hear Cape Cod is nice in the summer. And not so far.”

“Oh.” Bitty has a bit of whiplash. “Um, that’s nice.”

“We could take the train and meet in Boston. Rent a car.”

“ _Oh._ ” And there goes all the blood to Bitty’s face again.

“I guess this means I choose beaches, eh?” Jack gives him a grin.

“I… I guess?” Bitty’s mind is reeling too fast to follow. Now Jack’s talking about _next_ summer? Or does he mean _this_ summer? Because Bitty won’t have time, but… but if he means next summer, then Bitty maybe could go straight from school… but that means Jack’s thinking about them a _year_ from now, and…

“You’re right,” Jack says, a warm drawl in his voice. “It is nice to have something to look forward to.” And _then_ he hangs up.

Bitty falls backward onto the bed and stares up at the ceiling. “Jack Zimmermann,” he murmurs, “you are a _menace_.”

But when he flips onto his stomach and hugs Señor Bunny close, he’s grinning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes: I was a little disappointed that nothing ever happened in the wake of the Square One comic, where we saw Bitty getting into trouble with his coaches. They suggested he see someone, and we never heard more about it. So here’s my headcanon, Bitty *did* see someone and it totally helped, along with his sessions with Jack. It takes a village!


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June 5.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which Bitty is me and Jack is you guys, up until that becomes a very inappropriate metaphor, at which point I rescind it.
> 
> Is there an Archive warning for italics abuse?

Bitty went to bed grinning last night, but he wakes up frowning. And he goes through his day frowning, feeling completely out of sorts and watching himself carefully to make sure he doesn’t snap at someone who doesn’t deserve it.

Part of it’s just cabin fever. There’s still a week until camp starts, and while Bitty’s grateful for the time off, he’s starting to get stir-crazy. He’s walked around town a bit, taken jogs outside in the morning sunlight, and generally tried to keep himself from growing mold. But that’s not the same as having something to _do_. Bitty misses having a hockey team to feed. These days, he’s just baking for the neighbors, and it’s not the same thing.

But the other part of it is… a little more specific. Bitty’s feeling terrible about last night’s conversation with Jack. Not because of something he said or some reaction from Jack. More like something he didn’t say, some reaction he didn’t get. Jack trusted him with a big secret last night, and Bitty doesn’t think he gave it the weight it deserves.

It can’t have been an easy thing, for Jack to admit. If so, he might have done it long ago. To talk about his therapy, to admit the name of his illness. Those are big disclosures. And what was Bitty’s response? “Oh yeah, I get it, I did therapy for a while too, cool story bro.” Bitty should have said more. The conversation should have _been_ more. More serious, more significant. Just _more_ somehow.

He’s gonna say something about it tonight, when they get on the line. He’s gonna apologize, or let Jack know he takes it seriously. Something. Something that will save the whole thing from having been just an awful awkward mistake. Gosh, he really hopes Jack doesn’t regret telling him.

He stands in front of the bathroom mirror and practices his concerned face. “Jack, I just really want to let you know, I think what you told me was… “ ugh, what _was_ it? Bitty can’t even find the words for his thoughts. He’s hopeless. He leans both hands on the sink and hangs his head. Why is this so hard? Normally he has no trouble talking. But this week has been so weird. First awkward silences and now regrets and being unable to find the right words? What is _happening_ to him?

When the call comes in, at 8:30 sharp, Bitty briefly considers not answering it. For the first time, he considers just hiding away in his bed until the ringing stops.

But no. He has to face this. If nothing else, Jack deserves that much. He punches the green button.

Jack is _glowing._

Bitty stumbles over his “Hi” and falls ass-backward into wordlessness. Why is Jack smiling so hard? At _him_? What in the heck is going on? “Um, how’s your back feeling?”

“Hey, Bits. Much better, thanks.”  A _Bits_ , right off the bat. Jack’s in a hell of a good mood. Should Bitty even risk upsetting that, by saying whatever it is he wants to say about last night? But if he doesn’t, is it going to become one of those things that stays unsaid, bottled up until it’s actually a big problem? Bitty’s not used to vacillating this hard. Relationships are _stressful_!

Jack asks Bitty about his day, smiling softly as Bitty goes through the trials and tribulations of Mama’s coffee maker and the God-awful coffee they had to swallow from the local supermarket in lieu of something freshly brewed. It was an amusing story if you were there, but it feels flat upon retelling. Jack can’t possibly care what kind of coffee Bitty drank this morning. And yet here he is, going on like a fool about it.

“You Bittles take your food and drink very seriously,” is Jack’s amused comment. Well, he _seems_ entertained. Bitty takes the opportunity to launch into a speech about how of _course_ food and drink are important, they’re the foundation of our lives as social beings, didn’t Jack pay attention in their food seminar, or was he thinking about hockey plays the entire time? Jack laughs and nods, admitting that yes, _maybe_ he didn’t pay as much attention as he should have.

That laugh. That smile. This soft, kind, radiant Jack. Bitty’s infatuated all over again. He wants to keep talking about nothing forever, if this is the face he gets to see. But his regret keeps itching at him, a scab that he’s picked all day and now won’t stop bothering him. “Hey, um, honey?” he says. “This might be a little weird, but I wanted to say I’m sorry.”

“Sorry?” Jack blinks.

“Yeah, um, about last night. You… shared something really important with me, and I feel like I just kind of blew it off. I don’t know, maybe I’m being ridiculous, but I wanted to let you know I take it seriously, and I’m glad you told me.”

Jack laughs again. “Bits. You _are_ being ridiculous.”

“I _am_ , aren’t I?” Bitty chews on his lip. “I can’t help it, I don’t know why but you’re making me _nervous_ , Jack. I’m so nervous I’m going to do this wrong, and you’re going to sit there through one of these conversations and decide I’m still that dumb kid you used to yell at, and oh _no_ I’m talking about myself again, I meant to talk about _you_ , oh Lord…”

“Bits. Bittle.” Jack’s voice is so tender, it hurts Bitty to hear. “Listen to me for a second.”

“...It’s just that when I talk to you I think my heart’s gonna beat out of my chest and I… what?”

(That glow! The look in Jack’s eyes! What is _happening?_ )

“I wanted to tell you about it,” Jack says. “I’m glad I did. That's all. End of story.”

“Um.” Bitty doesn’t know how to take _any_ of this. “Okay?”

“Yeah, okay,” Jack says. “We’re okay. You’re working yourself up, but don’t. Everything’s fine.”

“I don’t know. It was a really big deal…”

“Bits.” Is Jack _laughing_ at him? What is with that persistent smile? “It’s _really_ okay. I promise. I just needed to tell you. There was nothing you were supposed to do, except listen.”

Bitty’s nerves flip over into paranoia. “You’re in a good mood tonight,” he says, peering through narrowed eyes at Jack on the screen.

“Am I?” The corners of Jack’s lips are twitching, like he’s trying to hold back a wider grin.

It’s _very_ suspicious. “You are and you know it. What are you smiling about?”

Jack touches his face, like he’s just realizing it. “Oh.” He tries to banish the smile; it doesn’t work. “Sorry.”

“Don’t apologize for smiling, tell me why!”

“Um.” And now there’s a flush rising in Jack’s cheeks. What on earth is going on? “I don’t want to embarrass you.”

 _What!?_ “Embarrass me, how? Come on, Jack, you’re not being fair.”

“It’s just that. Um.” Jack gestures behind him, at the bed. Bitty squints, trying to figure out if there’s something in particular he’s motioning to. “I was resting earlier. And I … maybe I was thinking about you.”

“Okay…” That’s sweet, but it’s no reason for Jack to be lit up like a Christmas tree. “That’s nice, I guess. Um... _what_ were you thinking about, about me?”

Jack breathes in. He’s even redder, if such a thing is even possible. “About … how you’d feel next to me, or... or on me, or…..” Jack leans in conspiratorially, cheeks flaming. “Bits, I, ah… I might have _done something_ while I was thinking of you.”

_Oh._

Bitty grabs the side of the bed to keep from toppling over. Lord, he can practically hear his Hausmates in his head, leering and whistling. _You know what that means, Bitty. You sexy motherfucker, you._ Bitty internally screams at them to get lost. This is between Jack and him. And Bitty doesn’t need any help to know exactly what Jack means. It’s right there, plain as the red tint to his cheeks, the dangerous swell of his pupils, the low throaty rumble of his voice.

“So.” Jack coughs, clears his throat. “So it was nice, and I’m glad to see you. That’s all. Sorry.”

“Sorry?” Bitty echoes. His head is empty of all higher thought. An image grips him: Jack on that bed, head tipped back toward the ceiling, hand at work beneath the sheets. Sweating. Breathing hard. _Bits_ on his lips. The image fills Bitty’s gut with warmth, and he’s suddenly, hopelessly hard. He tries to force his brain out of the image and into the present. It doesn’t want to go. Jack did that. He really did that, and Bitty was the one he was thinking of.

“Yeah, I know we said we weren’t going to talk about what we’d do if we were closer. I just… couldn’t really help myself, eh?” Jack’s rueful smile is so kissable. Bitty’s heart twinges.

“Th-that’s okay,” he manages. “I mean, I think about that too. It’s hard not to. I, um…” There’s a certain truth teasing at the end of his tongue. Should he say it? But why not, when Jack said it too? That wall’s already been trampled down. Bitty wets his lips. “I maybe… do some things too. Thinking about you.” He expects to blush, but he just feels dizzy instead. All his blood is down south.

Jack’s quiet for a moment. Just enough for Bitty to wonder if he should regret it.

Then he leans in further and says, “Show me.”

His voice, low and rich, spills right through Bitty’s skin into his core, and Bitty’s world is starting to spin. “I - um - oh, gosh, oh, goodness, Jack--” he hears himself babble, but there’s no thought behind it, just heart-pounding nerves and breathless abandon. “I -- show you? I--”

“I want to see.” Jack’s eyes are dark slits. “I want to know what it looks like when--”

“But-- but I thought we weren’t, I thought, until we -- if we’re--” But his body is ready, Lord, his body is _singing_ with need, and Jack’s narrowed eyes and and soft dark voice are caressing him sure as any touch. Damn Jack, damn this dangerous, unbearably sexy part of him. Bitty’s cock is throbbing so hard he’s afraid he might lose it right then and there.

“You don’t _have_ to do anything,” Jack says.

And it’s the right thing to say, consent is _important,_ but now Bitty finds himself disappointed. Why not? It’s not the same thing as talking about what they _could_ do if they were in the same room. It’s something they can do just as they are, a way to enjoy each other. Excitement overpowers Bitty’s nerves, then, and he finds himself wanting this so badly it’s like a pulse, throbbing inside him. He couldn’t even think of saying no.

“So,” he says, his voice soft. “You want to see how I--?” He lifts a hand and curls it.

Jack’s eyes are dancing. “No. Yes. That is… I don’t have to see… just your face is fine. I want to know if it’s anything like what I was thinking. Your face. When you. Um.”

“Oh, oh my _gosh_ ,” Bitty says, “okay, okay, honey. I just -- _how?_ ”

Jack’s smile is a lethal weapon, and Bitty is going to be found dead of it one of these days. “Take me to bed with you,” he says. “Like you did the last time, when we almost… when we stopped.”

“Oh. oh, okay,” and Bitty pulls down the covers, props the tablet up against the wall, looks to make sure his door is closed, and-- “Jack, are you sure?”

He doesn’t get an answer in words. Just that smile, and dark, eager eyes. It’s enough. Bitty slips into bed, gets comfortable on his side, and slides his hand down under the covers.

The first touch is electric. He grips himself loosely, takes one stroke. The knowledge sings through him with the touch: _Jack is watching him_. His teeth graze over his lower lip, and he lets out a small sound.

“Yeah.” Jack’s voice is barely a breath. But it gets into Bitty’s skin anyway, the sound of expectation and want, soft but brimming with excitement. Bitty strokes again, his eyes narrowing, then fluttering closed.

Jack’s looking at him. Jack’s watching his face. The knowledge is a furnace, pumping inside Bitty, powering him on. He strokes himself slowly and carefully, the way he does when he wants to take his time, to fall into the sensation thick and deep instead of bringing himself quick and sharp to the edge. He feathers his fingers across the head of his cock, grips the base firmly, rolls onto his back and lowers his other hand to tease. The first rolling peak of good feeling wracks his body, and he arches, shaking a little, letting it sink in.

“Oh, my God,” he hears Jack hiss, and tilting his head to look at the screen, Bitty opens his eyes.

Jack is leaning forward, so much so his brow is pressed comically close to the camera, his face tilted backward in an odd fisheye effect. He must be examining the screen so carefully, watching for every last detail. Even with the strange angle, Bitty can see how dark and wide his eyes are, how his lips are parted. His shoulders, hunched forward, rise and fall quickly with his breaths.

To be looked at like this, studied, _wanted_ like this! It’s like nothing Bitty’s ever experienced. His blood is zinging hotly through his veins. “Jack,” he murmurs, stroking harder, a little faster.

“ _Bits_ ,” Jack breathes, a sigh that overlaps the end of Bitty’s word.

Bitty offers him a smile and a few soft words: “Feels good, honey.” In his mind he’s lying next to Jack, doing this for him in real space, his head rolling onto Jack’s shoulder as he speaks; Jack leans in and kisses him hotly. Bitty feels it as though it’s real, even now and here, far away. Jack’s lips soft on his, his breath stolen away into Jack’s body. He moans, long enough that his voice breaks over the sound. Jack gasps in response.

He’s closer than he thought, his body trembling with pent-up need. As he strokes, and groans, and listens to the soft rasps of Jack’s breaths on the little speaker, a notion flies through his head. Maybe, just maybe, Jack’s hard watching this. Maybe he’s started to touch himself, too. Maybe they’re both doing this, hands on themselves, thinking of each other.

And then Jack sucks in a breath, lets out a little quavering noise, and maybe _maybe_ isn’t the right word anymore.

“Jack,” Bitty murmurs, “ _yes_ ,”  and Jack’s breath hitches. Oh, Lord, he _is_! It’s enough to send Bitty rocketing toward the edge, his eyes shutting tight. “Oh, God, I’m--” he starts. But it’s not enough of a warning. He gives a sharp cry, quiet but hard-edged, and his whole body arches into the sensation. He’s coming, and Jack’s _watching_ , and Jack’s _touching himself_! The swell of heat nearly blinds him. He pumps himself through it, letting little shaky syllables fall from his mouth, then collapses boneless into the sheets.

He’s a mess, and he’s going to have to get up and get some tissues. But first, there's Jack. Jack, who's still sitting there, breathing hard, eyes trained on him. Bitty flushes. “Oh, honey,” he says, “ _yes_ , come on.”

But Jack sits back, his breathing slowing. “Sorry,” he says, “sorry, I couldn’t help--”

“You can keep going, if you want,” Bitty says. “I can try to-- to help.”  He’s not sure what that would entail, but he’s sure as heck willing to try. He’s feeling all lazy and warm and _fantastic_ , and whispering at Jack through Skype seems like a terrific idea.

“No,” Jack says, “I’m okay.” He lifts both his hands onto the desk in front of his computer, as though offering proof that he’s not going further. Bitty’s a little disappointed, but whatever Jack wants is fine with him.

“Maybe next time?” he offers with a tentative smile.

“Definitely,” Jack says, and a promise hovers in his eyes. “Definitely next time.”

After they’ve said goodbye, Bitty’s sense of shame tries desperately to gain a foothold as he carefully tosses the tissues. This is the dirtiest thing he’s ever done in his life. He’s let someone watch him, he’s let someone see him as he comes. Right under his parents’ roof. His parents, who’d probably have a heart attack if he ever told them what he’d done and with whom. He really should feel ashamed, or guilty, or at least the littlest bit bad.

He doesn’t.

All he wants is for it to be tomorrow so he can see Jack again. Maybe even do that again. Maybe watch Jack. Bitty’s hormones are singing the Hallelujah Chorus, and his heart is bouncing with joy. He gets to do this. He gets to share something like this with someone he cares about, and the someone he cares about is just about the most amazing guy on the face of the planet, and that amazing guy _wants him._ There’s just no feeling bad about that.

Tomorrow’s Saturday. Maybe they’ll get a chance to talk during the afternoon. Bitty can’t wait.  Forget being stir-crazy. He would stay in this house _forever_ if it means getting to do wonderful, naughty things with Jack.


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June 6.

Bitty likes to think he’s come a long way since his freshman year. He’s no longer quite so prone to… untempered emotion, maybe, is the word for it? There has to be some fancy, academic way of putting words to it, but the layman’s term is “squealing like a dork and making ridiculous faces and rolling around on the floor due to feeeeeeeels.” Whatever it is, he's grown past it.

But not this morning. This morning freshman Bitty is back in spades.

He wakes up, takes one look at the window, takes one look at his tablet, and collapses back onto the bed with a delighted sigh. He rolls onto his side. Remembers. Kicks his little feet like a toddler in a stroller. Tries to keep from making a noise so high-pitched and shrill that it’d attract dogs three miles off.

He and Jack _did things_ last night.

Things. _Things._ Naughty things that involved Jack talking in that super sexy low voice and Bitty with his hand down under the covers and _orgasms._ Bitty had an orgasm in the presence of another human being last night. (Virtual presence. But whatever.) He is now a fully functional sexual person. And while he can just hear Shitty berating him about how sexual experience (solo or otherwise) is not a prerequisite for being a whole, worthy human being, Bitty can’t help feeling like he’s crossed some very important threshold.

Oh, gosh, he just wants to lie in bed and relive the memory all morning long.

Which of course he can’t do. Mama wants to go to the farmer’s market this morning to pick up some fresh produce and a new set of marigolds for the front garden, and isn’t Bitty coming along? So Bitty forces down his extremely insistent morning boner and gets dressed, and ten minutes later he is on the passenger side of the car with Mama at the wheel, humming to himself and looking up happily at the sky.

“Well, aren’t you in a mood,” she remarks as they rumble down the road toward town. “Nice talk with your sweetheart last night?”

“Mother. _No._ ” Bitty does his level best to look offended at the very notion.

“Mm-hm,” she sings, swinging the car right onto the main highway. “Don’t think we haven’t noticed you rushing to your room right after dinner. Or hear you up there talking to no one.”

“I’m talking to the _boys_. You know, the team? My Hausmates?”

“You just better be glad your parents are such modern types,” she says gaily. “We could be up at your door with a glass to the wall, but no, we’re giving you your privacy. You’re a grown man now, Dicky. Just be responsible, all right?”

“Mother, it’s not _like_ that,” and that’s Bitty’s story and he’s sticking to it. Because if he even admits to having a sweetheart or someone he likes, the questions will be never-ending and Bitty will end up in a very uncomfortable place. This isn’t just _his_ secret to keep. So he’s got to be diligent about it.

As they return to the house, Mama mentions offhand that she’s going to throw together a quiche and bring it down to the Bakers’ place, because “You know your father, all he wants to do is to talk to Anthony about the state of the team for next year, and Lorraine and I need to catch up.”

Bitty’s brain seizes up as though it’s been struck by lightning.

They’re going out. His parents are _going out_. On a Saturday afternoon. Just like he’d hoped. And maybe just maybe if Jack is home _maaaaybe_ they could Skype again…

“Oh, I think, what’s her name, Linda? I think she might be home from college. You two probably have things to talk about.”

“Lyndie, and trust me, we don’t have anything to talk about.” Bitty rolls his eyes. Lyndie is a few years ahead of him and has never cast eyes at him that didn’t subsequently roll up into her head. “Why don’t y’all go on over there and I’ll, uh, make a peach pie for dinner?” They have just bought a whole bagful of fresh peaches, and they would be pretty amazing in a pie.

If Bitty remembers to make it. Because Bitty had his phone out thirty seconds ago and sent Jack a quick “free to skype this afternoon?” and Jack just sent back a “sure :)” and if what Ransom says about emoticons is true, it’s going to be a _fantastic_ afternoon.

The hour it takes to bake the quiche is torture. For once in his life Bitty couldn’t care if the darned thing comes out burned, so long as his parents take it and leave the house with it and don’t come back for a good hour or two.  (Okay, that’s hyperbole: Bitty never wants to see anything burned.) When it’s finally done, and Mama _finally_ finishes up her makeup, and they’re _finally finally_ out of the house, Bitty zips up to his room like a pint-sized rocket ship.

He calls up Jack, pulse beating in his throat, feeling like he’s going to go out of his skin. His toes are tingling. A click - and then Jack’s on the screen - Jack who last night gave a little moan when he whispered Bitty’s name and --

“Hi, Bittle. I was just finishing watching some tape from this week’s practice. What’s up?”

Not exactly what Bitty was expecting. And it’s not like he was expecting champagne and roses. But this Jack is about as sexy as an unpeeled potato. A very nice-looking, buff, handsome unpeeled potato, but still.

“I-- I just thought we could talk now, before the game tonight,” Bitty says haltingly.

“Makes sense. Oh, I found some flights for the Fourth of July weekend, but I wanted to run the times by you before I bought the tickets. Hang on…”

What? Who is this pod person? Okay, maybe last night’s Jack was the pod person. This is much more like the usual Jack. All business, completely straightforward. Bitty half expects him to start running down plays for the next period. He goes over the times with Bitty, names a few options, and jots down some notes in another window as they decide on the best schedule for Jack's visit.

Bitty wants to be super excited that they’re firming up plans, but he’s having trouble getting past “disappointed” right now.

“Oh. And I meant to tell you. I ate all the cookies you sent on my last cheat day. But I have another one a week from today. And I was thinking maybe, if you made something you wouldn’t mind sending up…”

Another thing Bitty should be thrilled about. Being solicited for baked goods has to be one of his favorite things in the world. But still. Why is Jack being so very _Jack_ right now?

“I might go to Wents’ place tonight. He’s hosting a watch party. It seems fun, some of the guys are going. Snowy keeps telling me it’s going to be a mess, well, he uses the word ‘clusterfuck,’ so I’m a little wary. But it can’t be as bad as a Haus party, right? These are grown men with families, and…”

“Jack. Oh, my _God._ ”

The words fly out of Bitty’s mouth before he can stop them. Jack stops and blinks.

“I’m sorry, but-- but--” Bitty flails a bit. “How can you be so _normal_ right now?”

“Normal? Sorry, Bits, I don’t follow.”

Even though he’s alone in the house, Bitty still leans toward the screen and hisses it in a whisper. “Last night, what we did _last night_ , Jack, aren’t you… don’t you…” He doesn’t even know what he wants to ask.

Jack’s smile is fond, gentle, and utterly frustrating. “Last night was nice,” he says. As though that’s all there is to it.

Bitty drops his head to his hands. “Oh, Lord, Jack, I know you’re more experienced than me, but really? _Really_?”

“Really what?” There’s a bit of panic starting to rise in Jack’s voice now. “I’m confused now. What am I supposed to say?”

“I don’t know! Something! Anything! Jack, I’m sitting here at home alone because my parents went out and I begged out of going with them because I wanted the chance to be alone with you, like _really_ alone, because I thought maybe we could… I don’t know. _Do_ something.” And there goes the blush up into his cheeks, and the fire into his forehead, and maybe he’s going to collapse and die of embarrassment-induced fever.

“Oh.” Jack scoots his chair a little closer in toward the desk. His face gets that much closer and that much more intense. “I see. Sorry.”

“But I guess maybe it’s not such a big deal to you, and maybe I’m just being a little over-the-top, I don’t know, it’s fine, never mind, if you don’t want to...”

“I want to.”

All that heat doubles back and plunges through Bitty’s body. “What?”

Oh, Lord save him. Jack’s switched modes again, like someone’s punched a button in his console, and on a dime he’s gone from Banal Pleasant Jack to Sexy Dangerous Jack. His eyes blaze, and his jaw sets, tensing all the muscles in his neck. “I want to,” he says again.

“But you were…. So…” Bitty waves a hand. “ _Normal._ ”

“I didn’t want to push my luck,” Jack says.

“But you _want to_.”

“Bits.” Jack takes in a breath. “ _Yeah_.”

Bitty looks at him through widening eyes and knows he means it.

“Um,” he says, tentatively. “Um, do you want to do… what we did last time?”

Jack is quiet for a minute, pondering. “I want to know what _you_ want to do,” he says. “We did what I wanted last time.”

“Then…” The idea has been building in Bitty since last night, and now it’s throbbing in his pulse, splayed out like a centerfold in his head. “Then I kind of want to… see _you._ ”

“Okay.” It’s that same fond smile, but somehow this time there’s fire behind it. “How much do you want to see?”

“What do you mean--”

But then he stops. Because Jack’s scooting his chair back, not just an inch but a good long way, almost to the bed. Which means now the camera is picking up nearly his whole body, almost to his ankles.

Bitty’s mind very nearly does a double backflip and tries to throw itself out the _window_ before processing the implication.

“Oh,” he hears himself say. “Oh, _my_.” He sounds like a prim Regency-era dowager countess, but what else is he supposed to _do_? “Jack, are you _serious?_ ”

He’s so far away the camera can’t really pick up his smile, but Bitty hears it in his words. “I like the idea of you watching me.”

“You like…” No. No, he can’t think. His brain isn’t working. Jack’s name falls from his lips, and that’s as much as he can do.

Jack gets up from the chair, comes close to the screen again, and leans in. “Is that what you want?” he asks. There’s a sweetness to his tone that sends Bitty’s heart leaping. Jack is placing the decision in his hands. Jack is placing _himself_ in Bitty’s hands. The realization is sobering, at Bitty comes back to himself.

“That’s amazing,” he breathes. “It’s amazing that you’d do that for me, but… honey… can I just start by seeing your face?”

“Of course.” Jack scoots the chair forward and sits. “Like this? Or do you want me to lie down?”

All these decisions, Bitty wasn’t prepared for so many decisions. “Whatever’s more comfortable for you.”

“This is fine, then.” Jack glances around furtively, as though he’s afraid someone might barge into _his_ room. “Okay?”

“Um, okay?” Bitty’s not sure what Jack’s asking about.

“Okay.” And Jack shifts, and his right shoulder drops a bit --

Oh. That’s what _okay_ meant. It was the green light.

Bitty watches, fascinated, as Jack gives a soft sigh, as the muscles in his face relax and his eyes slide closed. Jack takes in a soft breath, holds it, lets it out. His brow twitches. His upper arms are tense.

“Oh, my gosh,” Bitty breathes. How he can just turn it _on_ like this is beyond him. What must he be thinking about? How can he be so comfortable in front of a camera, in front of a new boyfriend, and just lean back and _go_?

Jack sighs a little “oh” and shifts in his seat. His breaths are coming shallow and quick. Bitty tries to imagine what must be going on below the camera’s view. Jack’s hand working hard. Sliding, up and down, fingers curled around -- Bitty can’t even bring himself to imagine it. His mind’s eye has placed a filter around more delicate parts. Sure, he’s seen it before, but never hard. Never with Jack -- _doing things_ to it _._ It’s like his imagination won’t let him cross that line, not quite yet.

But this -- this is enough. Just Jack’s face is enough.

“Jack,” he murmurs, “do you mind if I…”

Jack opens one eye, gives him a lazy smile. “ _I_ did,” he says.

Bitty undoes his fly with shaking hands, eases his slacks and boxers down, and plants himself bare-assed on the chair. He can’t stop watching Jack’s face, the tiny lines of tension that appear in brow and cheek and jaw. Jack grazes his teeth against his lower lip, and it’s the most gorgeous thing Bitty’s ever seen. He wants to feel those teeth against his own lips, wants to be bitten and to bite back. Wants to plant little nips all down Jack’s neck, taste the salt in the hollow of his throat. Wants to slide his hands under Jack’s shirt and--

“Baby,” he whispers. A new endearment, one he hasn’t tried yet. Jack jerks a little at the sound of it. The reaction makes Bitty bold. “Baby,” he says again, “would you take off your shirt for me?”

No words in response, just a hurried rush of fabric. Jack’s shirt gets thrown halfway across the room, and when Jack settles back down, it’s with a groan. The sound reverberates through the speakers and right into Bitty’s blood. He reaches down and takes hold of himself, letting out a little sound at the feel of it. Heat settles in his gut.

There’s so much skin now to look at, the line of Jack’s shoulders and the swell of his chest and dear _Lord_ , Bitty wants to press close, to smell him, feel the fuzz of Jack’s chest hair against his face. And Jack’s making little noises now, gasps and pants and the occasional groan. He’s just _that_ much louder than he’d been, and Bitty wonders -- no, he has a sudden idea -- why.

“You look amazing,” he says, soft, and Jack -- oh, Jack responds. He twitches, shudders like a shiver’s going down his back, and lets out a grunt that’s just short of a moan. Bitty grips his cock hard as a rush of heat swells through him. Oh, Lord. He made Jack make that noise. _He_ did. Bitty. Jack’s moaning and touching himself and it’s because of _Bitty._ “Oh, honey.”

“Bits,” Jack chokes out. His voice is _thick_ somehow, like he can barely get the word out.

Inspired, turned on beyond belief, Bitty tries again. “A little…” oh Lord, is he really saying this? “...a little harder now, come on, honey.”

Jack’s arm tenses. He’s doing it, he’s really doing it. Bitty is on fire with amazement and delight and just plain lust. He runs his hand over the head of his cock, feels it leaking. “ _God_ ,” he whispers, “Jack, _please_.”

Jack fights to control his breath. “Tell me what you want,” he says, his voice strained and breaking.

“I want-- oh, _Lord--_ ” Can Bitty even say the words? “I want you to--”

“Bits, _God--_ ” Jack’s brow furrows tight. His lips purse.

“Can you…” Bitty leans forward, hunching over the desk. His hand is flying fast and he’s so close he can taste it. “Can you come for me-- honey---”

He’s not even through the word when Jack gives a cry like nothing Bitty’s ever heard before. Long, bright, loud -- a cry like a sunburst, overpowering Bitty’s senses. Lord, he can _see_ Jack coming, he can see the shakes overtake him, see his face contorted as it rips through him. This is Jack. This is Jack he’s seeing, at this moment, Jack driven mad by _him, his_ words -- and even through the haze of lust that’s eclipsing all his thoughts, Bitty is so, so moved at that thought.

Moved, and beyond his breaking point, and Bitty comes with a choked cry. It feels like a small sun exploding at the base of his spine, and his hips jerk forward, nearly pulling him off the chair. “Oh, Lord,” he whispers as he comes back to himself, “oh, honey, oh, oh, _my_.”

“Mm,” is Jack’s response. He’s calming down, smiling slightly, his whole body relaxed.

Bitty lifts a finger to the screen and traces the line of Jack’s shoulder. Oh, how he wants to just drop his head onto that shoulder and fall asleep. “You should see yourself,” he murmurs.

“You, too.” Jack looks as happy as Bitty’s ever seen him, limp and sighing and smiling. “Bits, your _voice._ ”

“My voice?” Delight crawls through Bitty’s chest, pushes a grin to his face.

“It’s… really nice,” is Jack’s response, and it’s plenty. No sonnet could possibly express what that smile, that soft drawl, does in that moment.

“I think I’m learning some things about you, Jack Zimmermann.” Bitty’s yawning now, his body languid and yearning for rest. Oh, but he doesn’t want to stop looking at Jack. He wants to eat up this image of Jack lazy and soft and unabashedly happy. Who would have thought this beautiful man was the same hockey hardass who made Bitty’s life miserable two years ago? But he is, and Bitty’s in love.

 _Oh._ He hasn’t thought that word before. Probably it’s just his buzzing body talking. But maybe. Maybe someday it’ll be something he can think, and mean it with his whole heart.

He takes a nap afterward, after stupid grins and goodbyes, and it takes headlights flashing against his window to wake him up. It’s after dark now. Hmm. Maybe he can just claim he went to bed early. Lord knows he’s feeling deliciously sleepy, like he could drop right back off and dream about handsome hockey captains and pies all night long--

\--oh no. Oh, goodness. Bitty offers up a prayer to the gods of parenting. He loves Mama and Coach to death, he really does, but please, just tonight, let them be dumb as a box of rocks. Let them come into the house and completely forget they have a son, just for the one night. It’s his only hope.

He forgot to make the peach pie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i may or may not take a break tomorrow.


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June 8.

Sunday was not a great day. Well, the not-so-greatness started on Saturday night. Mama did in fact notice the missing peach pie, and her first instinct was to feel Bitty’s head for a fever and fret over him for the rest of the night so Bitty couldn’t get a word in edgewise. She constantly asked him if something was going on, if he needed to talk about anything -- because apparently nothing says “upset” like Bitty neglecting to bake a pie. Well, she wasn’t _wrong._ But it was still a lot of uncomfortable questions and ducking and way too much lying for Bitty’s taste.

The lying started up again pretty much promptly on Sunday morning. They went to church, and for some reason Bitty ended up in the middle of a gaggle of church ladies, who all wanted to know about his life at Samwell. The words “liberal propaganda” and “homosexuals” actually came up in the conversation. Not as accusations, but as statements of faith that a nice young man like Eric was surely secure enough in his values that an evil Northeastern institution wouldn’t sway him to the dark side. Eric did a lot of nodding and smiling, feeling pretty hot under the collar and reminding himself over and over that making a scene in church wouldn’t do anyone any favors or change anyone’s mind. Mama did make a valiant effort to steer them away from the subjects, but there’s going up against a church lady and there’s going up against The Church Ladies, and the latter is much more difficult than the former.

And then, on the way home, Bitty saw Peter Kahn on his bicycle.

He was still fretting about that in the evening, when Jack called, and while they had a brief conversation, Bitty didn’t really want to talk about either of those major events. “Maybe tomorrow,” he kept saying, and Jack didn’t push him on it.

Monday has been slightly better so far. Bitty’s spent most of it making brownies for the camp counselor orientation tomorrow -- okay, so he’s basically made enough brownies for the whole camp, but once you start making brownies it’s hard to stop. At dinner, he mentions offhand that there’s a game on tonight, and Coach offers to watch it with him. So while he doesn’t get the chance to text with the group, he does spend a lot of time discussing the various plays with Coach. And that feels good. Weird, but good.

Now, after the game (Tampa Bay won again, making it a 2-1 lead in the series), Bitty heads upstairs to get ready for bed and have his nightly talk with Jack. He loves that it’s basically become part of his routine now. Change into PJs,  brush teeth, settle on bed with tablet, Skype Jack. The dinner date was an exception; most of their dates now are done in T-shirts and shorts. It feels cozy and intimate, and Bitty loves it.

“Are you feeling better?” Jack asks to start their conversation.

Bitty fidgets. “Maybe. Kind of. I don’t know.”

“Hm. You seemed pretty upset last night.”

“Yeah, it was a hard day yesterday.” Bitty gives a soft sigh, plants an elbow on the table and rests his head on his upturned palm. “I wish I didn’t have to hide so much.”

“Ah.”

The look on Jack’s face is so knowing and sad that Bitty feels a rush of guilt. “I mean, it’s nothing like you, I guess you’ve had to hide things from lots more people than I do. Because … wanting to go pro …” Curiosity peeks its little head out from beneath the guilt, and Bitty suddenly has a million questions. Just how much _has_ Jack hidden over the years? How does he think of himself?  “I mean, me, at least I can be myself at Samwell, but I guess you have to be careful, huh?”

“Not really.”

“But about some things.” Bitty can’t resist pushing a little. “At least about the fact that you like guys… or … that you like guys, _too_? I kind of don’t know what category you fall in.”

Jack frowns, not darkly but just slightly, like he’s thinking. “I was asking about you,” he says.

“I know, but I just--”

“I’m sorry you had to deal with that.” Okay, Jack definitely doesn’t want to answer that question. Bitty makes a note of it. “Who was it?”

“Oh, just a bunch of church ladies. I didn’t even have to say anything. They used me as an excuse to hear themselves talk.”

“What did they say?”

“Just the usual.” Bitty waves his hand dismissively. “Bellyaching all about how those Yankee schools up north are godless hellholes.”

“Haha.” Jack tries to stifle his smile. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh. But Shitty would probably love that description.”

Bitty grins. “He would.”

“He keeps begging me to come up to Boston in August. He says he’s dying to see someone who’s not related to him.”

“Aw, he misses you.” Bitty doesn’t know why Shitty doesn’t just get an apartment in the city for the summer, given that he’s not exactly lacking for funds. But maybe it’s some kind of family complication, and he’s not about to ask about it. “And you miss him too, just admit it.”

“Yeah, I guess.” Jack’s smile is brief, but fond. “I’m terrified that if I go up to visit, he’ll find some way to corner me in my room and take off his clothes.”

“Hah!” It’s kind of amazing, and a tribute to Shitty, that neither of them sees that as a remotely sexual gesture.

“Besides,” Jack goes on, “there’s something else I want to do in August. But maybe I’ll go up and see him later in the month, when you’re already in pre-season.”

There’s a moment when Bitty is actually going to ask what it is Jack wants to do in August. Then it clicks, and he can literally feel his ears turn pink. “Um… um…”

“If things work out the way I’m hoping,” Jack appends. There’s a hint of that wickedness in his tone, and Bitty finds himself scrambling for a change of subject.

“Um-- um-- so something weird happened  yesterday,” he says, and oops, he didn’t want to talk about that, but maybe he does. Maybe he needs to.

“Oh?”

“Yeah.” Bitty fiddles with his fingers. “You know how there are guys who are just… weird?”

“Weird?” Jack takes a beat. “Are we talking Shitty weird or Johnson weird?”

“Neither.” Sighing, Bitty shifts to one side and leans against the wall. “So when I was in high school, there was this one kid, Peter Kahn. He was kind of ... invisible, I guess? You know, he wasn’t really known for being a jock, or an arty kid, or one of the smart kids, or any of that. He was always just kind of … there. Which, you know, that’s fine, if you don’t want to stand out, I suppose. But about halfway through sophomore year, I suddenly realized that he spent an awful lot of time looking at me.”

“Hm.” Jack’s leaning forward, brow slightly pinched in the middle. “Looking at you how?”

“Like, _looking_ at me. Every time I’d turn my head in class, he’d be staring at me. And he’d turn away, quickly, but really casual. He didn’t freak out or anything. It was like I was supposed to believe that it was just a giant coincidence that every time I looked in his direction, he was looking in mine. It was weird.”

“Did you try to talk to him?” Jack asks.

“A couple of times. But every time I said hi, he always said hi really quickly back and then found somewhere else to be.”

Jack gives a little hum of assent, but doesn’t offer another question. Bitty goes on.

“And it got worse. By senior year I swear he was lurking around me, always just down the hall or at the next table. And I swear he joined my senior home economics course just because I was in it. So I started trying to avoid him. And it worked, for the most part. I just steered clear whenever I saw he was coming. Except for in class, that I couldn’t help. But I sure as heck did my level best not to look at him.

“You know, I feel kind of bad being weirded out. It’s not like I was super popular in high school. You might have guessed it, but I had some trouble fitting in. But there’s a difference between Eric Bittle weird and Peter Kahn weird. At least, I think there is.”

“I’m sure there is. So what happened yesterday?”

“Nothing. I mean, I saw him. We were driving home from church and he was riding his bike. And I didn’t look for long because I didn’t want to know, but I’m almost _sure_ he saw me and started staring again. Why does he _do_ that? Ugh!” Bitty throws his hands over his head like he’s trying to shield himself from the rain. “I didn’t see him at _all_ last summer. I just assumed I wouldn’t ever see him again, but there he was on his stupid bike just like it was high school all over again!”

Jack’s fretting now, brow knotted in that way it gets when they’re down by two in the third period. “Should I be worried? Is he going to hurt you?”

“Huh?” Bitty hadn’t even gone there. Sure, maybe it _is_ a little serial-killer-ish to stare at someone like that, but Peter _Kahn_? He barely moved. And he responded to eye contact by turning tail and running in the other direction. Not the kind of fellow Bitty is likely to feel threatened by. “No, it wasn’t like that. It was more like… well…”

“Like what?”

“Well, I don’t want to say it, but you know.” Bitty averts his eyes.”If it were even possible, which by the way it is _not_ , I’d think he kind of had a crush on me.”

“Why’s that impossible?”

It’s the even way he says it that throws Bitty a little. Like it’s a no-brainer. “Trust me, Jack, it is _un_ possible. You don’t live in the town I live in.”

“ _You_ live in the town you live in. And you had crushes. What was his name? Chris Tucker?”

Bitty bursts out laughing. “ _Turner,_ Chris Turner, I mentioned him _once,_ I can’t believe you even remember that!”

“Of course I-- that’s not the point, Bittle.” It’s funny how Jack’s scowls, which used to intimidate Bitty so, now just cause him to erupt in another round of giggles. “Why is it impossible that someone could have a crush on you?”

Bitty stops laughing and considers the question. “It just is, it’s impossible, Jack--”

“ _I_ have a crush on you.”

And those words, coming out of that mouth, with that sour expression, are a perfect storm of what-the-fuckery that shuts Bitty up right quick.

He takes maybe a full minute to recover. “I’m… I’m still not sure how that happened.”

“I can take you through it,” Jack says, and Bitty doesn’t doubt that he’s willing to start.

“But that’s not the point. How do I put this? I… I kind of lived two lives before college. There was me in school, and me everywhere else. And guys like Peter Kahn? He knew the me in school. And that guy wasn’t so interesting.”

“I have trouble believing you were ever ‘not interesting,’” Jack says, a low lilt of amusement in his voice.

“But it’s true. I learned pretty quickly not to stick my neck out at school. Kids are different when they’re all together.” Bitty laughs, but it’s not a happy sound. “It’s funny, there are boys who were my friend on the ice, but ignored me in the hallways. And everyone was happy to talk to me at the county fair, when I was selling slices of prize-winning pie. But if I brought cookies to class, I couldn’t _give_ them away.”

Jack’s silent, absorbing this. Bitty feels the silence creep over him like a shiver. He searches for words to fill it.

“I mean, I wasn’t unhappy, or anything. I had Mama, and I had the team, and the Internet, you know? That’s where all my friends were. First it was just people from figure skating, and then when I started vlogging, it was… more people. So I was still having fun. Just. School. I had to keep my head down in school.”

“I’m-- sorry, Bits,” Jack says, and Bitty can tell it’s because he doesn’t really know what else to say.

“It’s okay, it’s okay!”  Gee, he was almost getting a little bit emotional there. Bitty forces a smile to his face. “Like I said. I was happy, I did what I loved. School just was never a big highlight, that’s all.”

“But--” and Jack’s been frowning this whole time, no matter how much Bitty tries to reassure him-- “I still think it’s not impossible that someone could like you. Even back then.”

Bitty shifts uncomfortably. “That makes me feel weird.”

“Why weird?” Jack leans in toward the screen.

“I guess-- because if they only knew who I was in school, then I feel like they didn’t know _me,_ so it wasn’t really _me_ they’d have a crush on.” Bitty pouts. “It’s some other guy they _think_ is me, and I don’t want to be that guy anymore.”

“You don’t have to be.” Now, at last, Jack gives him a smile. “My point was just that you should know-- you should know you’re worth liking.”

And darn it all, Bitty can’t see that smile without smiling back. “Thank you, Jack.  That means a lot.”

“So what are you going to do about him?”

“Hm? About who?”

“This kid. The one who stares at you.”

“Oh.” Bitty had nearly forgotten him. “Um, I don’t know. Do I have to do anything?”

“Maybe you could ask him about it.”

“Ask him? Oh, sure, I’ll pop right over to his place. ‘Hi, we never talked in high school, but I always wondered why you stared at me like a creeper!’”

“It’s been two years. Maybe he’s changed in two years. Maybe--” Jack throws up his hands. “I guess I’m just trying to help.”

Bitty melts a little. “And that’s sweet of you, honey. I just don’t know that there’s anything to be done about it. It’s just one of those weird things, you know?”

“If you say so.” Jack stifles a yawn. “It must be getting late.”

“It’s _been_ late,” Bitty chides him. “I should get to bed. Orientation tomorrow. I know I just sort of vented to you tonight. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. I’m happy to talk to you.”

“Tomorrow night you should catch me up on what you’re doing, okay?”

“Okay, Bittle. Good night.”

“Good night, honey.”

It’s a weird feeling, going to bed that night. Bitty feels a little naked, like he’s shown Jack a part of him that isn’t so pretty. But Jack was kind, and accepting, and encouraging, so… maybe that’s all right. Maybe they can just live their lives, and talk together.  

Plus, of all their Skype dates, tonight felt the most like their old conversations used to be. Just two friends chatting, with the extra cherry on top of them being more than friends now. Not everything has to be dinner dates and sneaky Skype-sex sessions. Maybe they can just connect. Day to day. Like they used to.

And who knows? Maybe Peter Kahn _has_ changed in two years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Diving a little deeper into Bitty’s past here, and though I’m doing my best to check my work, I’m still nervous that I might contradict canon somehow. Let me know if I do and I’ll correct it.
> 
> I know this one isn't as "romantic" as the other ones. I'm taking a risk and starting a small story arc with this new character, so I appreciate your faith as I give this a shot. Thank you <3


	17. Chapter 17

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June 9

“Hiiiiii, Jack.”

Bitty sprawls out on his bed, languid and happy. Is there any better feeling than watching people delightedly eat your cooking? He thinks not. Well, maybe the baking itself. Or maybe seeing your old camp friends again. Or maybe looking at your boyfriend’s face on a screen when he’s texted you that he made the plane reservations to come visit you in less than a month.

It’s been a good day.

“You seem happy.” Jack has a lovely, fond smile on his face. Bitty’s starting to remember seeing that smile earlier in the year, but it feels a million miles different now that he knows the feelings behind it.

“Caaaaamp.” Bitty’s unable to stop himself from drawing out words tonight, it seems. “Ugh, I missed it so much. More than I thought I did. Ah, that broken-down old shack and the music circle and the bunks and the dining hall and the flagpole and the laaaaake.”

“Haha. Orientation, right?”

“Mm-hm.” Bitty nods. “Oh my gosh, it was so good to see everyone again. My friends Kenny and Lauren, and the old-timers like Simon. I love Simon. He’s about a thousand years old and he still plays guitar and has the voice of an angel, and he jumps around when he’s playing songs for the kids. And then there’s Patricia and the office staff and the nurses. And oh gosh, some of the campers from last year are back as CITs and the CITs from last year are back as counselors and it’s so wonderful.” He bounces on the bed.

Jack just watches him. Bitty drinks in that gaze, enjoys the steadiness of it and how there’s never once a lack of interest reflected in his eyes. Jack has… really nice eyes, he thinks, and he slows down, tempted suddenly to just stare back and smile. Gosh. A day full of camp and brownies and _Jack_ , life is so great.

“So the first part of the day is all the boring stuff,” he rattles on. “They take us all on a tour of the whole camp, and then we all gather in the dining hall and they run through all these rules and regulations and safety things. Which I take totally seriously, by the way, but it’s still the same things from last year, and the year before that, and the year before _that_ , so… I tune a lot of it out. And then they talk about some of the new things they’re planning to do this year - they have a pottery elective now, with a kiln and everything! I kind of want to make a pie plate or something and paint it Samwell red and bring it back…. Oh, but anyway, that’s the morning. The afternoon is all trust-building exercises so we all get along as counselors. And some of it’s really cheesy, like trust falls, but…” He pauses. “You’re awfully quiet.”

Jack’s gaze on him is steady, his smile steadfast and gentle. “There hasn’t been any reason to say anything.”

“So you just let me go on like that? And I really have been talking a blue streak! I’m sorry. I just get so excited thinking about it all. I mean, next week I’m going to have a whole new bunch of sweet little kids to take around! Oh, I take the day campers, I ride the bus with them and everything. There’s overnight campers, too, but they’re a little older-- oh, now, there I go again. I’m sorry.” He bites his lip as though he could button the sound in.

“Don’t be sorry,” Jack says. “I like you when you’re like this. It’s cute.”

Bitty tries hard not to flush. “Anyway, I’ve just been going on about myself and my life like it’s the only thing that matters, and here I told you last night that I’d make you tell me how things are going with the team, so it’s high time I-- Jack Zimmermann, why are you still looking at me like that?”

Jack doesn’t answer. He just settles back in his chair, smiling like the Mona Lisa, eyes bright.

“You really need to cut that out, sir. I’m starting to wonder if you’re just undressing me with your eyes.”

“Well.” Oh, no. Jack’s voice has jumped the octave down. “I _wasn’t._ I _could_ , if you like.”

Bitty scowls at him. “Jack, _shush_ ,” he says, but he doesn’t sound very persuasive, even to himself.

Jack shakes his head. “No, no, too late. Now I am, and you can’t stop me.”

“You’re terrible.”

“Sorry, but you gave me the idea.” Oh, Lord, he’s leaning in toward the camera in that way he does when he’s about to get intense. Bitty digs his nails into his thighs.

Jack says, “I am pulling that T-shirt off of you very slowly.”

_Oh no._ “What--”

“I am running my hands up your sides and lifting the shirt over your head and throwing it away.”

How? How does he _do_ this? Bitty’s pulse is hammering wildly. “ _Jack._ ”

“I am leaning down and I am kissing your--”

“ _JACK!”_ Bitty feels and sounds like a whistling teakettle. _“_ Jack, where did you learn to do that, oh my god, _stop_.”

This breaks the spell. Jack blinks like he’s just coming back to himself. “Sorry,” he says. “I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

“No, honey, you didn’t. Well, I mean, you did, but in a good way.” Bitty’s sitting Indian-style in front of his tablet, which was obviously a mistake. He shifts, tries to subtly adjust, and eventually flops down onto his stomach instead.  “Let’s save that for a little later, okay? Tell me about the team.”

Jack looks a little winded, a little confused. “Right,” he says. “Well. Good hard skate this morning.”

Bitty's still catching his breath, too. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. Um, then we went out for lunch. And Tater… boy." A smile dawns on Jack's face. "Tater is a card.”

“Really? How?”

The smile widens. “You can just tell that there’s nothing he loves the way he loves this team. He and Snowy are... wow. Snowy acts like he hates his guts, but not really. He just gives him hell. Tater laughs it off. And Poots and I are sitting there, thinking, this is going to be like watching a sitcom. It’s entertaining.”

That little chuckle at the end of Jack’s tale gives Bitty the warm fuzzies something fierce. He scoots on his belly closer to the screen.

“Boy, though. We had this seminar - it was more like a lecture - in the afternoon. Poots and I. All about interactions with the public and how to be discreet if we were going to … ahem. Well, something I’m not planning to do. It was a little embarrassing to sit through.”

Bitty wrinkles his nose. That sounds like awfully mature subject matter. He supposes it can’t be helped when you’re a celebrity, but if it were him, he’s sure he’d never make it through How to Get Laid Discreetly 101. “I can only imagine! “

Jack purses his lips, frowning. “I wasn’t really feeling it before, but… I guess there’s going to be a lot of attention. More than before. It’s making me nervous.”

“You’ll be fine,” Bitty says.

“I don’t know. It’s not as if I’ve got nothing to hide.” He casts a guilty look at Bitty.

That’s right. They’re going to have to be masters of discretion, right from the start. “Oh. Oh, gosh. Oh, that’s true.”

“I don’t _want_ to hide it, you know,” Jack says. He sounds almost petulant. “I want to tell everybody.”

Bitty’s heart melts. “Oh, honey, me too. But that’s just not the way the cards are dealt right now.” He offers a smile. “We’ll manage.”

“Do you think… there’s anyone we can tell?”

It’s a good question. Bitty does a once-over in his mind. The boys are his first thought. Shitty in particular would be trustworthy, but he might also give them hell about conforming to societal expectations and cowering before the Man. Lardo would probably be more chill about it, but there’s no way she wouldn’t tell Shitty -- see previous point. Ransom and Holster -- no way. The conclusion is obvious. Bitty sighs.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea, honey. I’m afraid anyone we tell will have a million opinions as to what we ought to do, and we’re still figuring _us_ out. Maybe… maybe in a few months we can think it over again, but right now?” He shakes his head.

“Yeah.” It’s Jack’s turn to sigh. “I guess you’re right. Well. There’s something to be said for keeping you all to myself.”

“Our little secret,” Bitty says. He lifts a hand and traces the line of Jack’s jaw on the screen.

“Our dirty little secret?” Jack’s eyebrows lift into his hairline.

“Oh, _Jack_ , are you starting up again?”

“Not if you don’t want to. Hey, are you going to send up something for my cheat day?”

The speed with which this man pivots is enough to make Bitty dizzy. “Of course! I’m going to get up tomorrow and make you one of your favorites, then get a cooler bag and Fed Ex it on up. Overnight if I have to!”

“Great.” Jack’s grin is wide as the sea. “I’m looking forward to it.”

“You should be,” answers Bitty with a wink.

Jack lets a beat go by without speaking. Then he clears his throat. “Look, Bits…”  he says. “I’m sorry if I was too… too much before.”

“Oh, no, that’s okay!” Bitty hurries to fill in the silence.

Jack reddens, and looks down at his keyboard. “I have… a lot of thoughts about things I want to do with you. A _lot_ of them.”  He glances up at Bitty again, both pleading and apologetic. “But I’ll only ever do what you’re comfortable with, okay? You can always tell me to stop.”

“Jack.” There’s that liquid feeling in his heart again. It’s like love and pity and happiness all mixed together, and it makes Bitty feel soft all over. “It’s not that I don’t want to. I just get a little nervous. You kind of turn on a dime, you know. All of a sudden it’s Sexy Jack instead of just Normal Jack, and _boy_ , Sexy Jack is sexy.”

“Sorry. I’ll try not to.”

“No, it’s a compliment!” Bitty pulls the tablet close. “We’re figuring this out,” he says. “It’s not going to be perfect all the time. I said to stop earlier, but that doesn’t mean you should never start. You listened to me, and that’s what’s important.”

“So.. you’re okay with Sexy Jack sometimes?” There’s a note of amusement in Jack’s voice,

Bitty curls up on this side on the sheets, pulling the tablet with him. “Oh,” he says, “I’m more than okay with him. Why, if Sexy Jack wanted to make a reappearance before we said goodnight, I know I wouldn’t complain.”

“Really?”

That wonderful soft feeling is suffusing Bitty’s whole body now. “Really,” he purrs. “Why don’t you tell me more about some of those things you want to do...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was like the puck in tonight’s game - flying here, there and everywhere! But I didn’t really have time to reorganize it. That’s the problem with a midnight deadline…
> 
> More on that other subplot next time. And maybe more of Sexy Jack. ;)


	18. Chapter 18

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> June 10.

“So the good news is,” Bitty announces, “you have a treat on its way to you thanks to the fine services of FedEx.”

Jack beams. “That _is_ good news.” A beat. “Is there bad news?”

“No... more like weird news.” Pursing his lips, Bitty scowls and runs his fingers through his hair. “He was there.”

“Who was where? Oh… do you mean that boy?”

Bitty nods. “It was so weird. He saw me going into the FedEx store and I swear he actually followed me in. He talked to me, too. Which is doubly weird. He never did that before.”

“What did he say?”

“He walked by me while I was in line and looked at my pie. And he asked what kind it was.”

“And...?”

“And, that’s it.”

“That’s it?”

“Yeah.” The more Bitty thinks about it, the less it makes sense. “I told him, and he said, “Sounds good,” and then sort of stood there for a moment with his mouth hanging open… and then he just went over to one of the copy machines and stayed there ‘til I was done.”

“Hm.” Jack reflects for a moment. “Well, it doesn’t sound like he was rude, at least.”

“No, just... awkward.” Bitty can’t figure out why he’s so disquieted. But the whole thing just makes him fidgety. “And it makes me awkward, too. Now that I think about it, I should have said something else. ‘Hey, you’re Peter, right? We were in high school together?’ But at the time I just couldn’t think of a darned thing to say. Imagine me, speechless!”

“It _is_ hard to imagine.”

“It’s like I’m back in high school all over again. I don’t like high school me, I want to be college me. Ugh.” Bitty’s shoulders slump. “But I can’t really do that, either. I’m stuck in this in-between place when I’m here. Save me.”

“Working on it. I’ll be there in a month.”

“Oh, God, I can’t wait.” Bitty rolls his eyes. “I’m not going to let you leave my side, mister. Even though I’m sure Coach is going to want to talk to you nonstop.”

“Coach?”

“Oh, you didn’t know? That’s my dad.”

Jack laughs. “Why do you call him that?”

“Well, that’s what he _is._ Coaches the high school football team now, it’s why we moved back. That and … some other things.”  Oh, no. He didn’t mean to say that. He sees Jack’s brow furrow, and tries to reverse course. “But! It’s all fine, I came out okay. And it’s probably thanks to Coach that I had a pretty easy time of it once we moved back. Kids didn’t want to mess with the kid of the guy who can sic a football team on you, even if it’s kind of hard to believe he’s my dad.”

He punctuates his speech with a laugh, trying to push the unpleasantness back into a corner, but Jack doesn’t let it go. He hunches forward. “Was it bad?” he asks.

_Yes._ “Oh, no. Just the usual things kids do. Mostly.”

“Mostly?” Jack’s tone is hard, low.

Ugh, why can’t he keep his mouth shut? Bitty looks away from the screen, afraid of the look he knows must be on Jack’s face. “It was really just name calling, with a couple of exceptions. But it all stopped once we moved back and Coach took that job.“

“Bits.”

The ache in Jack’s voice hurts to hear. Bitty tries to drown it out. “It’s no big deal, really. Kids are dumb when they’re young. Besides, some of what they said about me turned out to be true, so….”

“Oh.” When Bitty dares look back at the screen, he gets an eyeful of the exact look he didn’t want to see. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be, it’s fine. It toughened me up for hockey, right?” Bitty gives the most honest grin he can muster. “Let’s talk about something else. How’s Providence?”

“It’s… it’s fine.” Jack still looks perturbed. “Bits, can I ask you a question? It’s not about that, not really.”

“Um, yeah, of course.” The ominous crawl up his spine is unwelcome, and Bitty tries to shake it off. “What’s up, honey?”

“I, ah…” There’s a moment where Jack looks as if he’s trying to gin up the courage to speak. “I was just wondering when you knew.”

Oh, thank goodness. That’s much better than what Bitty was expecting. “When I knew what?”

“That. Um. That it was true. What they said.”

Bitty searches his brain. Who’s _they… ohhh._ “You mean, when did I know I was gay?” He stage-whispers it, as though Mama could be right outside.

“Yeah. You don’t have to answer.”

“Oh, no, that’s fine! Lord, I thought you were going to ask me something awful.” _Like if I ever got beat up._ “Gosh, there’s when I knew and there’s when I _knew_ , if that makes sense.”

“Um.” Okay, apparently it doesn’t.

“I mean, I guess I knew, or part of me knew, when I was real young. I mean, I wasn’t really into girls or boys ‘til I was thirteen. It was all about baking and figure skating.” _And trying to keep my hide in one piece._ “I went out with a girl that year, for a little while, just because Mama asked me so much about whether there were any nice-looking girls in my class. We never did more than hold hands. Her hand was all sweaty, too. I kept having to break away and wipe my hand on my jeans. Poor Amy. I hope she’s doing okay.”

“Who was the first guy?” Jack asks carefully.

“Oh, well, first it was celebrities, you know? All the boys on those teenybopper TV shows. Oh and athletes, of course. My goodness, I remember being obsessed with Johnny Weir. And Lysacek! Dear Lord.” He gives a little laugh. “I thought maybe I just wanted to look like them, or skate like them. That’s what I told myself. But then there was Chris Turner.”

“Ah.” Jack’s lips quirk. “Him again.”

“He and I used to go out to the lake in back of the school and try to skip stones,” Bitty says. “I was thirteen, fourteen? Fourteen, because it was the year before I made Regionals. Anyway, he could skip a stone five or six times, and I would watch him instead of the stone. The way his arm moved.” Even now, six years removed, Bitty can’t help a little sigh. “I just wanted to be around him. It was like, if I was close enough, the rest of the world went away. I remember this one time, he skipped one seven times, and he looked back and grinned at me, and I just felt everything inside me drop to the ground. I remember thinking, _oh, no._ ”

He loses himself a little there, remembering that sensation, the frantic re-examining of his life that followed. How he went home and stared at his figure skating posters and knew, deep in the core of him, what it had all been about. How he figured he’d grow out of it, but he never did, and how he’d grabbed on to hockey as the lifesaver that’d grind it out of him.

Funny, how it did just the opposite.

“Thanks for telling me,” Jack says. “I wanted to know because… well.” He scratches at his head. “I don’t really know how it happens. For other people. I’ve never had anyone to ask.”

“Of course, because you couldn’t tell anyone. Well, how did it happen for you?” Bitty remembers Jack’s reluctance to answer the other night. “Was it something like that?”

Jack hesitates, then shakes his head, slow and long. “It was… nothing like that,” he says.

“Oh.” Bitty isn't sure how to respond to that, or what he should ask next. He keeps quiet, waiting to see if Jack wants to say more.

“I don’t think I … feel things the same way,” Jack says quietly. “I don’t look at guys on TV and think -- I think they’re good-looking, but -- I don’t want to --” He breaks off. “I’m a little strange.”

“It’s not strange, honey.”

“It is, though. For me it doesn’t happen unless -- I have to know them. With-- with the one other guy, I knew him for two years before I looked at him and thought-- and with you, I don’t know, maybe I felt something? For a little while?” Jack looks lost and confused. “But it wasn’t until graduation that I looked at you and really knew what I wanted.”

“Well, that year was crazy for you,” Bitty says. “You had a lot on your mind.”

“But it’s not just that. I just …” Jack frowns, hard. Almost a pout.

“Honey,” Bitty says, “there’s no right or wrong way to feel something. You feel how you feel.”

“But.” Jack lets out a heavy sigh. “I want to tell you that I’ve wanted you for a long time, and I _can’t_.”

The minute the words are out, Bitty understands. That’s the core of this whole conversation, the reason Jack was reluctant to talk the other night, the reason for his consternation now. “Sweetie,” he says, his voice smooth and soft as he can make it. “You are who you are. If that’s the way you work, that’s okay. I’m not insulted. You want me now, don’t you?”

Jack looks at him with passionate eyes. “Yes. More than I know how to say.”

Bitty gets goosebumps. And an erection. But he pushes both sensations to the side. “That’s all I need,” he says. “Oh, Jack, you’re _fine._ You don’t have to be anything but who you are. I’m happy that you want to be with me. It doesn’t do me one bit of good if you wanted it six months ago, or not. I--”

_I love you right now, just the way you are._

The words echo in his head. He shuts his mouth and holds Jack’s gaze, silent, drowning in them.

“So you don’t think I’m broken?” Jack gives a soft little sound that might be a laugh. “Sometimes I think I might be broken.”

“Gosh, _no_ , honey! You know, I think there’s even a word for that? Nursey was telling me about it once. I can’t remember though. It just means, well, like you said. You have to know someone before you think that way about them. I can try and look it up for you.”

“No, that’s okay.” Jack shakes his head. “I don’t want a word for it. I just want it to be okay with you.”

“It’s more than okay with me.” Bitty wishes he could touch Jack’s face, cup his chin and run a soft thumb over his cheek. “Thank you for telling me.”

“There’s a lot more I want to tell you,” Jack says. “I’m not sure I can. Not yet.”

Bitty smiles fondly at him. “It’s fine, honey. I’ll be here. We’ve got time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>   * Remember what Ngozi says about Bitty being an unreliable narrator. :)
>   * Bitty watched Vampire Diaries.
>   * Evan Lysacek was a cutie.
>   * Bitty is not on Tumblr and does not remember the words for various sexualities. Nursey, on the other hand, totally has a tumblr. It alternates between social justice posts and hipster photos of empty coffee cups and dried flowers.
>   * Sorry no Sexy Jack tonight. But every night he doesn’t show up increases the chances of him showing up the following night, sooooooo.
> 



	19. Chapter 19

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thursday, June 11, 2015.

“Hey there, Bits.”

Holy shit, Jack is glowing. He’s only looked like this one time before in the history of their calls -- that very (a _hem_ ) eventful last Friday night. Bitty’s heart still pounds when he thinks about it.

“Hey, um, hi there, handsome,” Bitty is just grabbing for whatever greeting might sound appropriate in the face of this assault. “Um. Good day today?”

Jack shrugs. “Same as usual. This morning I went in and found my stall covered with toilet paper. And here I thought I was out of college.”

“Hahaha!” It’s a little fun to think of Jack getting hazed like a frog. (He was far too experienced to take his actual hazing seriously, Bitty remembers.) “Oh, no, did you have to clean it all up?”

“No, the guys helped. Somewhere there’s a picture of me with my mouth hanging open, though. I hope it doesn’t make the papers.”

“Hm, I guess you have to be extra careful about things like that, huh? Are people taking pictures of you wherever you go yet?”

“No, not yet. But there’s going to be a media push in July, from what I hear. Then I think it’ll start to get worse. I’d like to say I don’t know why they’d do that for me, but….” He shrugs. “You can’t help who your parents are.”

“It could also be that you’re a phenomenal hockey player, you know.” Bitty tsks at him.

Jack laughs. “Maybe a little of that.”

“Just a little.” Bitty lifts one hand and squeezes his thumb and forefinger together to indicate a  pinch. “A dash of you being amazing to go with all that legacy stuff.”

Jack’s grin is huge, and whoa, Bitty could just sit here and look at him smile like this all damn night.  He’s a little afraid to ask about it. He doesn’t want to make Jack self-conscious or to break the spell. If only Jack could look like this all the time. Whatever he’s done or whatever he’s thinking about, Bitty wants it to be a constant in Jack’s life.

Jack asks him about his day; they chat back and forth for a while about the game last night, which they missed. (Chicago won; the series is tied again.) Bitty is trying to decide which of five recipes for cookies he’s going to bring for the super-long camp setup days this weekend, and Jack helps him choose (oatmeal chocolate chunk clusters, and peanut butter drops baked and packaged separately for those who aren’t allergic the way Lauren is). It’s a long, rambly, casual conversation, punctuated by laughs and snide remarks. At last Bitty finds himself blinking at the screen, content and a little drowsy, out of fresh things to say.

“So, ah, Bits,” Jack says, his voice going soft. “I wanted to thank you for, for yesterday.”

“Hm?” Bitty searches his brain for the memory of last night’s talk. When it clicks, he nods. “It was no problem, honey.”

“It makes me feel better to know that you won’t be disappointed in me.”

“Pssh! Disappointed in you? For what? For how you feel?”

“For how I didn’t feel. If I’d figured it out sooner, we could have had some more time.”

It’s nice, Bitty admits, to imagine might have happened if they’d been together sooner. A first kiss in the kitchen, perhaps, to cap off the end of that final project. And then -- well, he couldn’t have gone with Jack to Winter Screw or anything, but they could have stolen so many moments together. They could have been sneaking over to each other’s rooms in the dead of night. Having long talks ‘til morning in the Reading Room, and stealing kisses before the sun came up. Quietly letting their fingers tangle together in the moments before the gloves went on for game time.

But they _had_ those all-night talks in the Reading Room. They had morning coffee at Annie’s and note-passing in the library. Not to mention those early-morning checking practices, so often followed by long talks and fond smiles in the locker room. Come to think of it, Bitty thinks with a smile, for a couple who wasn’t dating, they went on a hell of a lot of dates.

“Maybe you’re right,” he says, “but I like to think everything happened just the way it was supposed to happen.”

“Huh.” Jack shakes his head. “I don’t think there’s a ‘supposed to.’ I’m not a big believer in fate.”

“Well, of course. You wouldn’t be. But me, I’ve got a whole bunch of Southern superstitions that are hard to let go of, and Moo Maw always tells me everything happens for a reason. So I’m gonna go ahead and believe this was meant to happen just the way it did.” Bitty smiles, feeling sunny as a June sky. “I wouldn’t change a thing.”

“I... might change a few things,” Jack says, frowning. “Or maybe not. I kept thinking today about that one moment at graduation.”

“What moment?” Bitty runs through that day, the walk to the quad and the photos and what he’d thought was his last moment with Jack. It’s a lot of emotional memories -- he has to catch his breath.

“Oh. You weren’t there. It was after you’d gone back to the Haus, and I was with my parents.” Jack tips his chair back, looking up toward his ceiling, an absent smile on his face. “I remember thinking something wasn’t right. Like I’d forgotten something important.”

“Yeah?” Bitty barely breathes the word. He wants very badly to see where this story goes.

“It was my dad, actually. He told me to-- to go do what my heart was telling me to do. And it was -- it’s like when you come out of the locker rooms onto the ice. All at once there’s all these bright lights and all this noise. It was like that. Everything… exploded at me.” A short laugh escapes Jack’s lips. “The way that felt. That’s what I keep thinking about.”

Jack leans forward again, his chin tilting back down toward the screen. “And I went running over there, and, well... you know what happened then.” He smiles, pure and happy and bright.

Bitty raises a hand to his lips, sucks in a cool gasp of air that moves through his fingers. _That’s_ the reason Jack’s glowing. Not because of a good day on the ice, or comfortable June weather in Providence, or any other reason. Jack gets that glow from thinking about Bitty. Bitty’s the reason he looks so happy.

Humbled, stunned, he fights for words. “Gosh, Jack -- it sounds -- I mean -- I’m glad.”

“I’m so glad you didn’t shut me down,” Jack says.

“As though that would even have been a possibility, goodness gracious, Jack!” Bitty has to laugh. “You came through that door and I-- oh, gosh, I was crying, wasn’t I? I must have looked a sight.”

“You looked…” and Jack blushes, just out-and-out blushes. His voice goes very low. “You looked beautiful.”

Bitty should counter with an oh-my-goodness. Or something. Something sufficiently demure and flattered. But he can’t, because his jaw is on the floor. On the floor _of the kitchen_. It’s gone and crashed through the bed, through the bedroom floor and down a story.  So he does the only thing he can do: He sits there and gapes.

“Sorry,” Jack says, but he doesn’t look terribly sorry. “Was that too much?”

“N--no, nonono, nono!” Bitty has his jaw back, but apparently all he can do is flap it uselessly. “It’s fine, you’re fine, I’m-- I’m-- I don’t know _what_ I am, but thank you!”

“I can think of a few words for what you are,” Jack says. “If beautiful was too much, can I start with sexy?”

Oh, Lord, he’s not letting up. Bitty leans into the screen. “Jack Laurent Zimmermann, you are _sweet-talking_ me.”

“Maybe a little.”

The grin that’s breaking out on Bitty’s face simply _will not_ be controlled. Bitty tries. Valiantly, even. It’s no use. “Are you thinking _untoward_ thoughts, you?”

“Again,” Jack says, “maybe a little.”

“ _Well._ ” Bitty breathes the word, and fans himself like an idiot. He can’t think of anything else to say.

Jack sobers a bit. “Mostly,” he says, “I just want you to know. That even though I didn’t see it before … I do now. A lot. A _lot._ ”’

He leans on the word, the vowel colored with his accent, and Bitty feels it it reverberate through his chest. Jack wants to let him know this. It’s … it feels like melting, and like honey dripping all over everything. Stoic, unemotional Jack Zimmermann feels for Bitty -- a _lot --_ and wants to make sure he knows it. Bitty doesn’t know if he’s ever gotten a compliment quite so potent.  He looks for anything approaching an answer, and can only come up with Jack’s name, falling off his tongue dumbly.

“I’m. Uh.” Jack slides a hand behind his head, rubs the back of his neck. “I’m not very good at this. But I think -- I think you should know I’m very happy. That’s all.”

“Jack.” Bitty feels the flood of words rising up and doesn’t even try to stop them, “Jack, you big monumentally stupid sweet man, you. I _know_. I can see it on your face. It makes me so happy. There was a time when I didn’t think you even knew how to smile, so, you know, I’m awful glad to be wrong about that. These days, to see you smiling like that -- for anything --”

“For you,” Jack reminds him.

“And isn’t that just the icing on the cake!” Bitty says. “Just keep on being happy, Jack. It does my heart good.”

“That doesn’t seem right somehow.” Bitty reels for a second, but then he sees Jack’s lips quirk. “After all, you never make cakes.”

Bitty puffs up like an outraged turkey. “I _can_ make cakes. Just because the pie is a far superior animal in general doesn’t mean I don’t have variety, _goodness_ , Jack.”

And now the conversation is derailed again. But Jack keeps on glowing until they hang up for the night, and that’s all Bitty really needs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A little bit of contextless schmoop is all I had in me today, I’m afraid. I will try to move the plot forward some more tomorrow. 
> 
> Hey, is there something you would really like to see them talk about or cover in the time we have left? Not that I’m crowdsourcing plot ideas, but I don’t want to leave a really obvious stone unturned. I read and love on every last one of your comments, so if there’s something you want to see happen, please know that I’m here and listening.


	20. Chapter 20

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friday, June 12, 2015.

11:25:34  
are you there

11:25:52  
I have a situation

11:26:05  
you’re skating aren’t you

11:26:15  
HE’S HERE

11:26:27  
AT THE GROCERY STORE. IN THE BAKING AISLE

11:26:58  
I’m hiding around the corner what do I DO

11:29:11  
he’s taking forever

11:30:15  
he just picked up the really good flour

11:31:00  
in his cart: good flour, powdered sugar, molasses, baking powder, shortening

11:32:03  
what am I doing I’M STALKING MY STALKER

11:41:35  
**Jack:** just got off the ice

11:41:57  
**Jack:**  are you ok

11:44:15  
**Jack:** text me when you get this

11:53:24  
sorry I was driving

11:53:33  
let me put the groceries away then i’ll call

* * *

 

Bitty sets up his tablet on the kitchen counter, just to the right of his mixing bowls. When Jack picks up, it’s obvious he’s on his phone, and the background behind him is unfamiliar. He must be somewhere at the stadium. “Hey, what’s up?”

“Hi, sweetheart,” Bitty says, and Jack immediately looks back and forth nervously. “Oh. Sorry. I suppose I'd better tone it down if you’re in public.”

Jack gives an apologetic shrug. “I’m in one of the offices, but still.”

“No problem. I just wanted to catch you up.” Bitty cracks an egg into one of his bowls. “So you saw my texts.”

“Yeah. What happened?”

“Just what I said. I was in the grocery store, and I saw Peter in the baking aisle. So, I stood around the corner and waited for him to be done.”

“He didn’t see you?” Bitty shakes his head.  “You didn’t talk to him?”

“Why do you keep asking me about that? Why would I talk to him?” Bitty cracks another egg, grabs a fork and beats. The soft clinking of the fork against the glass rings in the air.

“Because that’s what you do.” Jack says. “You talk to people. It doesn’t seem like you, to be afraid to have a conversation.”

“It doesn’t? I guess.. maybe you’re right.” Bitty spoons in a touch of vanilla and stirs thoughtfully. “But it really is just like I’ve been saying. I’m so different down here. And when people from my high school show up, I just want to put my head on down and hide.”

“You’re not in high school anymore,” Jack says gently. “Neither are they.”

“Well, that's true, I know that's true. I don’t know. What do you think? Maybe I ought to just go over there and say hello.”

“Go over where?”

“Oh. I didn’t tell you that part, did I?” Bitty switches bowls, pulls the butter from the stovetop and pours it in. “He got a good head start on me out of the store, so I saw him on his bicycle when I was driving home. Turns out he lives pretty close. There’s this farm house up on the hill? Just a little too far to go trekking on up. I’ve never known who lived there, but now I do. Explains why I keep seeing him when I’m coming and going, I suppose!”

“So he’s not stalking you.”  

“Not today, maybe. He still did follow me into the store the other day, which makes me antsy. And I promise, I did _not_ imagine all the staring.”

“I still think he has a crush on you.” There’s the beginning of an impudent little grin on Jack’s face. Bitty looks at him reproachfully.

“So what, you want me to go over there and let him down easy? Tell him, thanks but sorry, I have a top-secret boyfriend?” Brown sugar goes into the butter. Stir, stir, stir.

“If that’s what he needs to hear. Listen, whatever is going on… do you want it to stay this way all summer long? Or do you want some answers?” Jack’s voice is quiet but insistent. “I think you should do _something_. Or else you’ll worry about him all summer long.”

Bitty sighs. “When did you get so smart? I don’t remember you being such a people person.”

“I’m not. I’m a _you_ person.”  Jack chuckles. “Whatever else you can say about me, Bittle, I know you. I think you can handle this.”

“All right, all right, you _may_ be right,” Bitty drawls. More sugar, white this time, joins the mix. “Tell you what. If I get all these cookies baked in time, maybe I’ll bring some over and see if he wants to talk. But if I’m ax murdered--”

“You said he wasn’t going to--”

“Shush, if I’m ax murdered, it’s all your fault.”  Bitty’s laughing now. Maybe Jack is right and he just needs to take this bull by the horns. What’s the worst that could happen? Peter Kahn is definitely not an ax murderer. Ax murderers don’t buy good flour.

* * *

15:42:37  
chocolate chunk ones are done

15:43:16  
[image]

15:43:31  
they look good huh?

15:45:02  
anyway, peanut butter drop time

16:01:23  
**Jack:** sorry was in training

16:02:14  
**Jack:** looks good

16:02:51  
**Jack:** which reminds me, your pie came yesterday.

16:03:22  
**Jack** : going to eat it tomorrow for breakfast lunch and dinner

16:03:24  
good! that’s the way it should be.

18:01:23  
peanut butter drops accomplished!

18:07:15  
packaging up some cookies for that Very Important Mission we discussed

18:08:00  
**Jack:** good luck

18:08:42  
**Jack:** let me know what happens

* * *

It’s not until after a later-than-usual dinner that Bitty gets the chance to Skype Jack back. The little clock at the top of the tablet informs him it’s 9:13 p.m. as Jack picks up.

“So?” is his first word to Bitty.

“Heh. So.” Bitty scratches his head. “So, that was really strange.”

“Did you go see him?”

“Yeah. I even talked to him for a minute.”

“Just a minute?”

“Well, that was the funny thing.” Bitty says, pushing his lips forward into a pout. “He came to the door, but he wouldn’t let me in.”

“He wouldn’t… huh?” Jack looks just about as lost as Bitty feels.

“Yeah, he told me to come back Sunday. Of course, I let him know I was going to be doing camp setup that day, but he just told me to come back after I was done. And here's a funny thing: He told me not to bring any food. Which, as you know, is like asking me not to _breathe_ , but he insisted! 'Whatever you do, don’t bring any food with you,' he said. And then he looked over his shoulder -- oh, and he was wearing a jacket, like he was going to church -- and said he really had to go but he hoped I’d come by on Sunday. Isn’t that weird?”

“I’m a little lost.” Jack shakes his head. “So he recognized you?”

“Yeah. I started to introduce myself, and he said, ‘You’re Eric, right? From high school?’ But he said it in this funny voice. I’m not sure how to describe it. It’s as though he wanted to say something else, but he changed his mind. Anyway. I said yes, that's who I was, and I just realized he lived practically down the block and thought it’d be a nice thing to do to stop by and say hello.’ And he looked happy, but then he went and told me 'now’s not a good time and I’m sorry, I can’t invite you in.'”

“Hm.” Jack’s wearing his pensive scowl. “That doesn’t make any sense.”

“You’re telling me!” Bitty wags a finger. “My goodness, I don’t even know why I bothered to try. What am I even doing worrying about this boy, Jack? I’ve already got one weird boy in my life, I don’t need another.”

“Well.” Jack pinks slightly. “I _hope_ you don’t need another.”

“It’s not like that and you know it, young man.”

Jack laughs. “‘Young man’? Bittle, you’re five years younger than I am.”

“So what? Doesn’t mean you’re not a young man.” Bitty lets out a good harrumph. “Seriously, Jack, why am I wasting time on this boy? I should be steering clear and now I’m the one following _him_. It’s ridiculous. What do I need with him?”

This gets Pensive Scowl again. “You said he was in the baking aisle, right? Maybe he could be a baking friend.”

“A friend!” Bitty throws his hands in the air. “I can’t even keep up with the group chat these days, and Monday I’m starting camp. I’m going to have thirteen eight-year-olds to keep track of.  I don’t need another friend!”

“But maybe it’d be nice,” Jack says. “To have someone to talk to down there.”

“I like talking to _you_ ,” Bitty replies with a pout. But maybe, _maybe_ , Jack’s just a little bit right.  “Anyway. Tell me about training. What kind was it today?”

“Hah. It was social media training. You’d have hated it.”

“Oh, goodness. What’d they say??”

“For us not to be surprised if we got tweets telling us to jump off a cliff, mostly. They said the safest way to tweet was to never look at our notifications and never answer our fans.”

“That’s _ridiculous_. How are you supposed to cultivate a fanbase on Twitter if you don’t _talk_ to anybody.” Bitty sits up stiffly, his spine rigid and his lip curled. “Was the person giving this training over 40? Because they sound like they were over 40.”

“Hah. I _knew_ you wouldn’t like it.”

“Now listen, Jack, I will help you with your social media game, but you have got to know, you cannot trust what anyone over the age of 40 says about how Twitter works!”

“I, uh… just thought I’d stay off all of it,” Jack says. “Didn’t you tell me it was a terrible idea?”

Oh. He might have done that, come to think of it. “Well. I suppose that’s one way to handle it. At least at first. But you should at least claim a Twitter handle so all the good ones don’t go to impostors.”

“Impostors?”

“You know.” But Jack probably _doesn’t_. “Trolls. People who sign up for that name, then pretend to be you. So if someone already owns the name @JackZimmermann, you might not be able to get it. And then people would follow them, thinking they’re you. The verification system works pretty well to prevent that, but there’s still a lot of easily misled--”

“Wait. Why would anyone want to pretend to be me?”

Bitty bites his lip to keep from bursting out laughing. “Oh, _Jack._ Oh, you absolute sweetheart.”

Jack just shakes his head. “I don’t get the Internet sometimes.”

Poor, poor _baby._ Wait till he finds out about RP accounts. “Well, whatever you decide to do, I’ll support you.”

“Thanks, Bittle. So you have a long day tomorrow?”

“Yeah, and Sunday. Sunday the overnight campers come in, so I’ll be helping to haul big trunks of clothes back and forth all day long.” Bitty sighs. “I love my day kids. They just come with backpacks, bless them.”

“Will you find some time for me tomorrow?” There’s a touch of longing in Jack’s voice. Bitty’s heart wobbles in his chest.

“Of course, honey. I might be a little tired.”

“You can Skype me from bed.”

Bitty can’t help teasing. “Last time I did that we had some fun.”

“We can have some more,” Jack rejoins without even a beat.

“ _Jack_.” But Bitty isn’t overwhelmed this time, not like he’s been before. Instead, he’s incandescent, excited. Jack wants to do something with him tomorrow. What a wonderful piece of knowledge to have. It will drive him through the day, he knows, to have that to look forward to. Oh, how he can’t wait until Jack’s here, in his room, in his arms for real. But until then… “That sounds nice,” he says, beaming, gazing at Jack through half-lidded eyes. “Let’s have some more fun tomorrow. Maybe you could take me to bed with _you_ , too.”

“God.” Jack breathes. “You make me not want to wait.”

And oh, goodness, is that _Jack_ overwhelmed? Is such a thing possible? But Jack’s cheeks are pink and his shoulders lifted a little, tension in his body present that wasn’t there before. Bitty looks at him through wide eyes, suddenly tempted himself.

“We… we shouldn’t,” he says haltingly. “I have to-- I have a long day tomorrow.”

Jack takes a deep breath, lets it out heavily. “Yeah. I know.”

“If I didn’t,” Bitty starts.

“I know. I should let you get to bed.” Jack’s laugh is soft, and sweet, and Bitty wants to feel it against his skin. The idea gives him goosebumps. “Good night, Bits.”

“Good-- good night, Jack.” _I love you._ ”Talk to you tomorrow.”

With the lights off, Bitty stares at the ceiling and and tries to figure out how it is that talks about strange boys in baking aisles and social media can make him so ridiculously happy. He reaches for his phone on his nightstand and pulls up his messages.

* * *

 

23:42:01  
just saying goodnight again.

23:42:27  
thinking about you.

* * *

 

23:43:07  
**Jack:** thinking about you too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The better you know me, the more likely your guess is right.


	21. Chapter 21

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Saturday, June 13, 2015.

It’s a long, wearying, wonderful Saturday. That night, Bitty crawls up the stairs to his room feeling the delighted daze of laziness that comes after one’s given one’s all. Today he dragged barrels full of wiffle ball bats and orange cones from loading dock to soccer field; he helped create and hang a colorful construction-paper “Welcome Campers” from the rafters of the main office building; he unpacked hundreds of paper plates and napkins for use at lunch and snack. He swept out the bunks and scrubbed the bathrooms. He pulled pool equipment he couldn’t identify out to the shed by the lake. And, most deliciously of all, he sat down and created a custom welcome card to greet each and every one of his campers as they come through the doors of the main building and find their cubby for the next two weeks.

Tomorrow will be even busier.  Bitty can’t wait.

He collapses into bed and groans like he’s an 80-year-old geezer afflicted with the world’s worst arthritis. Rolling over and reaching out, he fumbles for his tablet. His hand pats here, there, wherever on his nightstand before his fingers brush against smooth glassy plastic. Stifling a yawn, he pulls the tablet over and sets it up against his wall, then opens Skype.

Jack picks up the call, and Bitty finds himself looking _up_ at him -- Jack’s positioned himself the way Bitty usually does, laptop sitting on his bed, camera tilted up to where Jack is sitting, cross-legged, against the pillows. A filament glows low inside Bitty at the sight. “Hi, honey,” he murmurs. 

“Hey.” Even Jack’s voice sounds a little different from this angle, crisper and softer. “How did it go?”

Bitty shrugs, curling up a bit. That glow starts to spread languid heat through him. “Oh, it was a long day for sure, but it was a whole lot of fun. I’m so excited to meet my kids on Monday. They’re the cutest little things, Jack, you have no idea.”

“Yeah? How old did you say, nine?”

“Eight. Ugh, starting at nine they just turn into little smart-alecks, but they’re so sweet at eight. So interested in everything. Gosh, I love camp so much. And the days are going to fly by. Pretty soon it’ll be the end of the first session, and then--” Bitty beams. “And then it’ll be the week you come to visit. I can’t believe you’re really coming. Wow.” 

He’s babbling a little, but the sleepy joy is reverberating through him, that and the low current of heat he feels when he looks up at Jack like this. It’s all so great. Everything feels great right now.

Jack uncrosses his legs -- for a moment Bitty has a million-dollar crotch shot -- and lifts up the laptop, maybe balancing it on his knees. “Three weeks,” he says. “And then I’ll be there.”

“We’re gonna have a good time,” Bitty informs him sagely. “I’ll take you by the rink where I started skating, it’s where I used to play with the community team too. And if you want I’ll take you up so you can see the camp, but there’s gonna be overnight campers there, so someone might recognize you. And my relatives are going to descend on you like a plague of locusts, but I’ll try to fight them off long enough that you can actually enjoy the picnic. And--”

“And we’ll have some time to ourselves,” Jack says. “Right?”

There’s that hopeful touch in his voice. Bitty’s toes tingle. “Yeah,” he breathes. “Some time to ourselves.”

“Good.” 

That filament of warmth inside him changes, thickens. Now it’s a cord of desire, heating him from gut to thighs. “I thought about you today,” Bitty says. “I thought about this.”

“Me, too.” 

Just two words, but they’re impossibly warm. Bitty feels them like a current of electricity running through his body.  “Jack,” he murmurs. “Do you want to--”

Jack’s answer is low, heated, and immediate. “ _Yes_.”.

The word is a spark. Bitty feels the flame catch on his skin. He reaches down and passes a light hand over the length of his cock, still encased in the soft cotton of his pajamas. An “ _oh_ ” escapes his lips.

“Bits.” There’s a note of warning in Jack’s voice. “When you make that noise, I--” Jack swallows, a soft little gulping sound coming through the speaker as he does. 

Bitty’s heart is thumping. He can feel each beat like a jolt. “Jack,” he murmurs. “What do you want to--”

“I want to show you,” Jack says readily. “If-- if you’re ready, I want you to see.”

“See?” Because even if Bitty thinks he knows, he needs to hear it. He needs to be sure.

But Jack doesn’t give him words. Instead, he straightens out his legs and pulls the laptop onto his lower thighs. And he slowly tilts the screen forward. The camera pans down Jack’s body as it goes, and lands on the juncture between thigh and torso.

And oh, oh, _dear_. Jack’s so-- so _very_  hard for him. His sweats are tented, unashamedly so, and his cock juts up beneath the fabric like the rise of a mountain. Bitty’s mouth is dry, and he’s throbbing with excitement and embarrassment and want. He reaches down his pants and grabs his cock in a tight fist, to keep the sensation from exploding through him too fast.

Somewhere above the reach of the camera, Jack gives a groan. “That’s what you do to me,” he says. “I wanted you to see.”

“Oh, lord. Oh, my sweetheart,” is all Bitty can say. His throat feels thick and tight, and the throbbing in his cock is resonating through his whole body. “I-- is that-- did I--”

“Yes.” Jack’s answer is almost a hiss. “Yes, you did.”

“But how, I didn’t-- I haven’t said--”

“You were _you_ ,” Jack says. Like that explains everything.

“ _Jack._ ” Sometimes the name feels like a prayer. “Will you do something? For me?” The words itching to come out next are bawdy, shameless, and Bitty can’t believe they’re on the tip of his tongue. He should be stammering, beside himself with embarrassment. But looking at Jack has turned everything upside down. Bitty’s charged up inside, electric and so confident, because this is Jack, Jack trusting him and wanting him, and Bitty needs it too badly to fumble. He lets the words fly. “Will you touch yourself for me?”

Jack puts a hand to the laptop screen instead, tilts it back just far enough that Bitty gets a full view of him from thighs to hairline. “Can you see okay?” he asks. 

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Jack takes in a breath. He’s looking down at the screen, and even with the weird angle there’s a delicious wildness about his expression now that Bitty could drink in. Parted lips, wide eyes, thick lashes. “Tell me if you want me to stop.”

He lifts his hand and runs it, feather-light, over his erection. A soft _uh_ escapes his mouth, and his eyes close briefly. 

“Oh, my gosh,” Bitty whispers. He echoes the motion on his own cock. “Do it again.”

Jack obeys, this time taking a firmer hold and stroking up and down. He shivers. His breath catches, a guttural stop of sound as his Adam’s apple lifts, then falls again.

And if Bitty only knew how to work a camera, or a paintbrush, because this is art. Art he wants to memorize and recreate constantly in his mind. Jack stroking himself, gasping, breathing shallow breaths. Jack doing all of it, for _him_. “Baby,” he breathes, “that is so gorgeous.”

Jack gasps. Strokes again. His other hand comes down to play at the waistband of his sweats.

“Take them off,” Bitty barely realizes what he’s saying. “Take them off and show me.”

Jack makes a soft, desperate noise in his throat. He lifts his hips, pushes the sweats down over his knees and tosses them aside, nearly upending the laptop as he goes. Bitty watches with his heart whirring, and when Jack settles down again, naked from the waist down, Bitty loses his breath entirely. He’s always known Jack was sculpted and gorgeous, but to see him like this -- hard and proud and tense for _Bitty_ \-- it’s like setting foot on another planet. Bitty’s mouth and hands both itch with the need to touch. Jack’s _beautiful._

“Oh,” he breathes. “Oh, honey. Yes.”

“Can I,” Jack starts.

“Yes, oh, Lord, yes.” 

Jack’s palm wraps around his cock. Bitty nearly passes out. The sight of Jack’s fist, pink around his rose-dark length, is the best porn Bitty’s ever seen. He watches with hungry eyes as Jack’s fingers curl, slide beneath the head, feather over the top. And then he plunges downward, wrist jerking, and takes a hard stroke up again. A choked-off groan sounds in the speakers.

“Honey.” At the word, Jack jerks and grunts. Every time Bitty says anything, Jack responds as though he’s being touched, and maybe he is. So Bitty lets the words flow on out. “Honey, yes. Do that for me. I’m-- _God_ \-- I’m doing it too right now. Watching you. I’m touching myself, too.” He is-- his hand flying faster on his cock, the waves of warmth coming up quick and intense. Too intense. He forces his hand to still. He doesn’t want it to be over too fast.

“Bits,” Jack chokes out, “Oh, _God_.” And something that’s probably French, that Bitty doesn’t get, but it sounds gorgeous because it’s in that passion-strained voice.  

Bitty’s imagination unfurls like a banner. “Do-- do something with that other hand,” he says. “Show me what makes you feel good.”

Jack nods. He breathes harder. His free hand slides up under his T-shirt, and Bitty thinks he sees thumb and forefinger come together on one nipple. Jack arches with the touch, lets go a soft strangled noise. He’s working harder on himself, picking up speed. His cock comes up through the tunnel of his fingers, sinks back down, pushes through again.

Bitty loses himself in imagining. They’re somewhere alone, on the Fourth of July. Maybe beneath a sky full of fireworks. And Bitty’s hand is the one on Jack’s cock. Bitty’s mouth is closed around that nipple. Jack’s body is twitching and shifting beneath him, Jack letting out soft syllables and moans into the night air. Bitty lifts his head, trails kisses up Jack’s chest to his neck, watching and feeling in amazement as Jack comes apart.

“Oh, no,” he mutters, too late. It’s overtaking him already, that wild red wave, and Bitty curses and bites his lip hard to keep from shouting as it crashes through. His hips jerk forward and up, his cock spasming as he comes all over himself in an uncontrolled mess. “Oh, oh, Jack-- Jack, you made me-- _oh_ ,” he whispers, voice breaking into a soft moan. 

On the screen, Jack’s eyes open, widen, then close again as he works himself harder. “Bits,” he mutters. “Ah, _ahh._ ” He twitches, hips stuttering, thighs flexing and tensing powerfully as he goes. 

Head spinning, heart galloping, Bitty watches with fierce eyes -- as though he could reach through the miles and caress Jack with his gaze. “Come on, honey,” he manages. “Show me. Show me.”

“I-- _God_ \--” Jack’s hips snap forward as he dissolves into shakes. Come trickles down the sides of his cock, over his fingers. Jack breathes heavy and hard, curling forward. “ _Ahh_ , Bits,” he manages between gulping breaths, “oh _God.”_ Bitty watches in amazement as he fights down his gasps, composes himself and straightens up again. His shoulders rise and fall as he works on slowing his breathing.

Bitty finds himself grinning. “ _Damn_ , honey,” he says, “you’re pretty amazing.”

“I-- that was hot,” Jack confesses, his cheeks pink. “I don’t know why, but I really like you watching me.”

“Oh, well, I suppose I can manage to do that for you once in a while,” Bitty teases.  “It’s such an awful sacrifice, but I’ll find some way to survive.”

“Clean up, Bittle.” Jack scowls, but his eyes are smiling.

After they’re cleaned up, Jack actually gets into bed, pulling his laptop up beside his head, and settling down onto the pillows. Lying down, Jack looks impossibly sweet and vulnerable. Bitty wants more than anything to run his hand over Jack’s brow, tousle his hair and place a goodnight kiss on his temple. Maybe in three weeks. Maybe, if he’s lucky.

“I had fun with you tonight,” he says, out of lack of anything more coherent to say.

“Yeah.” Jack’s grin is lazy. “A lot of fun.”

And maybe there’s something else to be said there, something romantic or sweet or daring. But Bitty’s mind is dulled by pleasure and weariness, and he can’t think of it. So he just says goodnight instead.

The tablet stays propped up against the wall that night, even after the call is done. Jack feels that much closer that way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) I know no French. I don’t wanna mess up French. So if you think Jack would be saying it in French, please feel free to headcanon that. But I speak only the English.
> 
> 2) I will wrap up at least the first bit of the Peter storyline tomorrow, and whether I bring him back or not will depend on whether I feel I can use him in a competent and meaningful way. 
> 
> Otherwise, meh. These are the travails of serial fiction, I suppose - not every character ends up doing the thing you expected them to do.
> 
> As to the actual mystery of Peter: You will find that some of you guessed partially right, and some of you were quite wrong - but none of you guessed everything.


	22. Chapter 22

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sunday, June 14, 2016

13:24:22  
 **Jack** : how’s move in day going

13:27:00  
oops i just saw this it’s going fine, busy helping the overnighters move in

13:42:38  
oh gosh i just remembered i’m supposed to go see peter kahn today after i’m done

13:43:42  
oh gosh i’m so nervous

* * *

18:09:15  
finally done with move-in day

18:43:23  
aaaaand finally home which means i need to go over there

18:44:03  
DON’T MAKE ME GO I’M NERVOUS

18:46:57  
 **Jack:** go. you said you would.

18:47:32  
 **Jack:** and you’ll feel better knowing

18:48:42  
okay FINE i’m GOING pray for me

* * *

19:05:28  
HELP JACK I’M LAUGHING TOO HARD OH MY GOD

* * *

At Sunday dinner, Bitty tells the whole hilarious story to his parents. They shake their heads and shrug, and Mama says, “Goodness, Dicky, if you’d just asked me I could have told you that!” Which perhaps is true, but Bitty wouldn’t have done it any other way. You have to have buildup for a punchline like that, and Bitty had it in spades.

He ruminates on the best way to tell Jack. Surely he can’t just come right out with the truth. No, this has to be told the right way. So that Jack can truly appreciate the irony. Because, bless Jack, he’s been trying so hard to help Bitty _figure out_ what to do about this _monumental problem_ and he deserves to have the payoff be as satisfying as possible.

And then Jack shows up on his screen, all scowly and concerned, and Bitty lets out a new peal of laughter..

“So. Um. I guess I don’t have to worry,” Jack says when Bitty finally calms down and wipes the tears from his eyes.

“I’m sorry -- Jack -- it was just -- oh, Lord! Your face.” Bitty fights his grin, but it’s too persistent,  and he eventually just lets it rule his face. “No, no, you don’t have to worry. And neither did I. I worked myself up into such a dither! I still can’t believe it.”

“Well? Don’t keep me guessing.”

“It was the cookies. The cookies! That’s the reason I couldn’t come in the other night. Because he wouldn’t let the cookies into the house. Can you believe that?”

“Um. No.”

“When he explained it to me, I very nearly keeled right over and died right there. You don’t even _know_ what I was thinking! Just awful things. I thought maybe I should call a SWAT team for backup before I went into that house.”

Jack’s scowl has let up, but only by a little. His face is still dark. “What happened?”

“Oh! So. I get to the house and it’s Mrs. Kahn at the door. And she’s all apologies. ‘If we’d only known,’ and ‘we would have told him it was all right to let you in, but sometimes he gets a notion in his head and it’s hard to get it out, he takes rules very seriously.’ She was very nice. And I’m sitting there thinking, rules, what rules? And then Peter comes downstairs, and immediately he drags me into the kitchen, and explains everything. And I immediately text you, because I’m on the _floor_ laughing.”

“So what was it? Do they have rules about sugar in the house?”

Bitty cackles. “Oh, Jack, you health nut. Naturally you’d go there.”

“Well, tell me, then.”

Finally, it’s time for the punchline. Bitty balls up his little fists, bites down his grin, and lets it go.

“Jack… they’re _Jewish.”_

Jack’s only response is, “What?”

“They’re Jewish! So they don’t usually let food into the house that’s not certified by a rabbi-or-whatever as -- I forget the word for it. But Peter told me his mom got on his case because there’s no reason to believe cookies wouldn’t be whatever-the-word-is that means it’s okay to bring in. So he said he was sorry for telling me to go home, and he hoped I wouldn’t be mad.”

“Wait. Hold on. So he told you to go home and come back because of the cookies? Why didn’t he just tell you that then?”

“Oh, well. Bless his heart, Peter’s a bit of an awkward penguin.” Bitty shakes his head at the memory. “He said, oh, it was in the middle of dinner, it’s Sabbath dinner -- I think that’s the word he used? It sounded like that -- and they were doing the something-else-I-can’t-remember -- some kind of ceremony? or prayer? -- and he couldn’t really think right. He said, sometimes he just can’t find the right words. And I’m sitting there, thinking _Lord,_ you poor little pepper shaker, how’d you make it to 20 years old?”

But Jack’s off on a different tangent. “If he’s Jewish, why’s he named after a Christian saint?”

“Hahaha! I’ll have to ask him that. But he seems to be a nice guy, just a little quiet and awkward is all. Once he gets started, though--”

“Bits.” Jack’s reverted to full scowl mode. “You said this guy stared at you. For two years. And now he’s just a nice guy?”

“Oh, oh, that’s the other half of the story!” Bitty shifts on the bed. “So apparently, well, I wasn’t completely successful at keeping my online life and my real life separate. He found my vlog right when it was starting out and he’s been following it this whole time.”

“So he’s… what? A fan?” Jack looks extremely dubious.

Bitty hastens to reassure him. “Something like that. What he said -- and once he starts talking he can talk quite the blue streak -- what he said was that he couldn’t believe it was the same person. Because I was so quiet in school, and then on my vlog I’m, well, I’m more like the _me_ you know. He said he used to watch me to try and figure out how I did it. To be two different people like that. Poor thing, I didn’t know what to tell him. I only did it because I felt I had to.”

And oof, that veers close to some dangerous territory. Bitty takes a moment to figure out how to redirect.

Finally, he finds what he needs. “And he said to me, and this is so precious, he said I was intimidating! Me!” He laughs. “He said he pulled together all this courage to ask me about my pie and then after I answered, he couldn’t think of anything else to say. And as for me, I was so stunned he came up and talked to me, neither could I! We were a pair. Him all worked up about me and me all worked up about him, when we could have just started talking like two normal people. I don’t know how it got all blown out of proportion. Jack, I’ve decided. I’m going to adopt him. He’ll be Chowder’s brother.”

At long last, this pulls a smile from Jack. “How will Chowder feel about that?”

“Shh, they’ll get along perfectly,” Bitty replies happily. “Chowder talks without thinking, and Peter thinks without talking. They’re obviously brothers already.”

“All right. Well. I’m glad it worked out.” Jack still doesn’t look entirely convinced.

“Aw, Jack.” Bitty pouts a little. “I know, I worked us both up into a dither about it all. And that’s my fault. But this is a good thing! We’re already made a date to do some baking later this week. He says he tries to follow my recipes but they never come out the way he wants, so I’m going to see if I can’t help him figure out why.”

“A date,” Jack repeats flatly.

Bitty gawks. “Jack Laurent Zimmermann, you are not _jealous_ , are you?”

Jack grumbles. “You’re starting camp, too. You’re probably going to be tired at night.”

A wave of ticklish delight squirms its way through Bitty’s body. “Oh, Lord, you _are_. Jack! First off, Peter’s a friend. Just a friend!”

“I know that,” Jack says testily. “But… I’ve gotten used to this.”

“What _this_? You mean us? Our Skype dates?” Bitty frowns now. He doesn’t like it when Jack seems unhappy, even if he’s just being a testy old curmudgeon. “Honey, they’re not changing. You make time for me even though you’re on the ice every day at ass o’clock a.m. If you think I’m going to give up our talks because a couple of eight-year-olds ran me ragged, you don’t know me very well, mister.”

“I don’t want to exhaust you.”  It might be a noble sentiment if Jack didn’t sound so petulant about it.

“Have you _met_ me? Honey, everything’s going to be fine. If anything, I’m going to talk your ear off more than I already do! And look, if I’m tired, we’ll talk in bed like we did yesterday. Just _talk_ ,” he clarifies, but can’t help adding, with a wink: “Most of the time.”

This seems to mollify Jack somewhat. “That sounds nice.”

Bitty gazes at him. It’s funny, Peter reminds him of himself, but he also reminds him of Jack in away. They have that same halting way of talking, and more importantly, the same devotion to routine and rote. With Jack, it’s about discipline. For Peter, Bitty gets the feeling that there’s comfort in it. Something to count on in a world that’s hazy and full of gray areas. Maybe a little of that is true for Jack, too.

“You know,” he says, “Peter told me something. He was talking about why he liked to watch my vlog, and he said, ‘I don’t have a place where I can be myself.’ I thought that was so sad. And it got me thinking. Even when things were bad, I always had the Internet, I had the vlog. And now I have Samwell, and, well, _you_.” He sighs. “I’m really, really lucky. I get to be all of me. The hockey bro, the baker, the gay boy -- I don’t have to change one bit. Do you-- do you have a place like that, Jack? Does _anybody_ know all of who you are?”

“I. Um.” Jack licks his upper lip, a quick flash of tongue. “I never thought about it.”

“Your psychiatrist? I mean, it’s none of my business what you tell them, but… ”

Jack looks guilty. “No. I couldn’t really… not everything. I guess I don’t really have that kind of place. There’s, ah… there’s always something.”

_Let me be that place,_ Bitty thinks. _Tell me everything. And maybe I’ll find the courage to tell you what I still haven’t been able to say._

But, he reminds himself, they’ve got time. They don’t need to push. Bitty closes a fist around the impulsive thoughts and grinds them down to silence. 

By the time they hang up, Bitty seems to have succeeded in reassuring Jack that nothing is going to change once camp starts tomorrow. Jack’s still dubious about Peter, but then again, Jack wasn’t there in that kitchen watching Peter explain about milk and meat dishes like they were the greatest joy to be found in life. If Jack were here, he’d be co-adopting Peter in a flash.

Most importantly, Bitty’s glad that he doesn’t have this mystery hanging over his head anymore. He knows enough of the world to know that not everything can be solved by sitting down and talking. But in this case, that’s what it took. All Bitty had to do was say that first “hello.”

He can’t wait to offer that first “hello” to his new campers tomorrow morning.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a lot of notes because I’m in a chatty mood. 
> 
> There do not appear to be any synagogues in Madison, GA. The Kahns have to drive 40 minutes to Athens to attend services. It’s a good thing they’re not Shomer Shabbos.
> 
> I may bring back Peter. It’s a little awkward since we’ve only met him secondhand. But in a way he’s a slightly less functional version of both Bitty and Jack - so he may be useful for parallel purposes. It all depends on … well, I won’t say what it depends on.
> 
> I think we may be moving in a more serious direction for the next few chapters. Keep your seatbelts fastened. (I also reserve the right to change my mind about this, most likely if Bitty decides to talk about his kids for 3 hours tomorrow.)
> 
> Writing this is such an experience! It’s fascinating to see what works and what doesn’t. Thanks for your patience and kind comments, as always.


	23. Chapter 23

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tuesday, June 16, 2015.

It’s Tuesday and the second day of camp. The first day went pretty much as expected: Bitty came home and talked his mama’s ear off about his kids, then after dinner went up and did the same to Jack. But it was game night, so at 8 p.m. he (and, via text, the rest of the boys) were glued to the screen to watch Chicago win the Stanley Cup.

Shitty is not pleased about this turn of events. Where Shitty got his hate-on for Chicago Bitty’s not sure (he _claims_ it’s because they never courted Jack, but hatred that deep has got to come from somewhere else), but Lord, he’s on a tear all Tuesday. In the few moments Bitty gets to check group text, he sees a series of increasingly interesting permutations of the word “fuck.” By the time Bitty’s done with dinner that night, he has read such choice phrases as the Chicago Fuckhawks, fuckaroni and cheese, and even Fuckwell University Men’s Fuckey.

“Well, Shitty’s in a mood,” he says by way of greeting to Jack.

“Yeah.” Jack chuckles. “He’s under a lot of stress.”

“I guess.” Bitty sits cross-legged on the bed, pulling Senor Bunny into his lap. “I thought he’d be having a grand old time up there before school started.”

“His family’s driving him crazy. He keeps sending me love notes. Begging me to come rescue him. I think he might have called me… what was it? Prince Gorgeous on the White Stallion of Love.”

“Hah! He must be just up to his ears in unwanted attention.” Bitty laughs. “And he’s probably sick of wearing clothes every day. You _should_ go visit him, though. At least for a weekend.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Just give in and let him snuggle you,” Bitty says. “Think of what it’ll mean to him.”

“You’re right. Maybe next weekend. How was camp today?”

“Oh. Oh, LORD.”

Jack sits back in his chair, folding his arms, as though bracing for the assault.

Over the next several minutes, Bitty tries to encapsulate everything that happened on this, the first “normal” day of camp:

  * The campers have chosen their electives and went off to the first days of those classes. “I just wish I could keep them all together all day long, but at least we have morning swim classes and afternoon sports all together. Although I honestly think they should do it the other way around, don’t you? Sports in the morning before it gets too hot, and swim in the afternoon to cool down. But I’m not running the camp, so it is what it is, I guess!”
  * Bitty got to go to the pottery studio and see the wheels and kiln in action. “I just don’t know how they do that! I tried it and you put a lump of clay on the wheel and it starts spinning and everything just goes all lumpy. I’m afraid I’m just not cut out to be a potter. I’m okay at other crafts, though. I can braid the gimp pretty well!” (Jack: “The what?”)
  * His kids are still adorable. Amanda has a thing about snails. Hayden and Harry (“I’m pretty sure they actually named him after Harry Potter, we are _in that generation!_ ”) have a weird hand-clapping game they play together. Isabella is shy and spends all her time buried in a notebook covered with unicorn stickers. Teddy is clearly going to be trouble.
  * Bitty’s co-counselor Lauren filled him in on all the gossip he’s missed over the year. (“So David and Marie were going out for like six months, but then David insisted on going stag with a group of his friends to prom and didn’t even bother to ask her, so she dropped him like a hot potato and went with her best friend Charlie and now _they’re_ a thing. I like it when friends become more than friends, I think that’s the basis for a stable relationship, don’t you?”)



Bitty finishes off with a dramatic “...and _dear lord in heaven above_ I think I’ve talked for a half hour straight, not that you’re not probably used to it already, but you have to understand, Jack, they’re all so adorable and camp is so much fun. I’m so surprised you never went. I suppose college is kind of like camp in a way, though, isn’t it? But you don’t get to make gimp bracelets at college. Or do you?”

“Dad was home during the summers,” Jack says quietly.

It feels like a non-sequiter. Bitty cocks his head. “Hm?”

“Summer was off-season.” Jack says. “So my father came back home. He bought me these models, old planes and ships. We’d put them together. He read me the package inserts that talked about when the plane or the ship was used. When I got a little older, he started taking me to the driving range.”  

There’s something about Jack then -- the crease of a brow, the way his hand is clutching his arm, tight and tense -- that quiets Bitty. Jack is trying to tell him something, and it’s taking all his strength to do it. Bitty hushes and lets him speak.

“During the school year, Dad was playing. He called, but we only saw him on TV. The game was always on. The guy on the TV, that was my dad. I didn’t know how he was feeling or what he did all day. I just knew whether he scored or whether he won.”

“Honey,” Bitty says carefully, “you don’t have to--”

“When he was in town, he’d come to watch me during practice. All the kids would gather around him and ask him questions. I always tried to do well, but when Dad was there… I had to do better than well. I wanted them to stop looking at Dad and start looking at me. That sounds bad. But I was jealous of him.”

Jack’s quiet for a minute before Bitty feels comfortable saying something. “Of course you were,” he says. “Everybody wants to be just like their parents. Honey, what’s going on?”

“Oh.” Jack offers him a small smile. His gaze leaves its faraway destination and settles on Bitty’s. “I was just remembering. Well. That and… I was thinking about what you said. About being myself.”

Bitty’s heartbeat accelerates. “Jack. You know you don’t have to tell me anything you don’t want to.”

“It’s only fair,” Jack says.

“There’s no _fair_ or _unfair_. It’s just what you want to--”

“I want to.” He sighs. “Some of it might be ... hard, but I want to.”

“Okay.” Bitty isn’t sure what else to say but that. “Okay, honey. I’m listening.”

Jack nods. He takes a moment to think. And he starts talking, in a soft meandering tone Bitty's not sure he's ever heard.

“Dad got on the ice with me a lot, when he came back during the season. We stayed after my practice and he taught me things that the coaches didn’t. It’s strange, maybe, but I didn’t believe the coaches when they used to tell me I was good. I thought, maybe, because they knew who my father was, they didn’t want to tell me the truth. But my father always had something to teach me. So I knew I couldn’t be as good as they said.

“I know that isn’t right, but I was little, and knowing it and feeling it are two …” He gives a soft, bittersweet laugh. Bitty’s heart clenches.

“Anyway. Um. I went to minors when I was twelve. By then I was taking it -- the medication. I don’t remember how I started, whether something happened or…. But I was taking it by then.

"I was okay in minors, mostly. I got a lot of attention. Not a lot of friends, but attention. Looking back, I might have wanted to do it differently. I didn’t mind, though. I was good. Everyone told me I was good. That was enough, back then…" He shakes his head. “No. It wasn’t enough. I still couldn’t sleep. My head. It was like running tape. Over and over, and thinking about what Dad would say, if he were… But that was normal. It was my normal.

“Then there was the Q. And that was-- that’s when things changed.”

Jack takes a minute, breathing in heavily, licking his lips. Bitty watches him the way you watch a poised rattlesnake, wary of making any movement. He doesn’t want to change anything, not a breath, if this is the environment Jack needs to unburden himself. And he wants to know, Lord help him, but Bitty wants to know everything. Every day, every moment. What brought Jack here. What he still feels like he needs to say. Bitty wants to know everything there is to know about him. But he can’t ask. Jack can only tell, and if Bitty never moves or breathes again it’ll be okay so long as Jack tells him everything.

“It was different from minors. A lot different. There was a lot of attention on the whole league, not just me. Everyone there was getting looked at. There were crowds in the stands every game. The guys were different too. There were parties. We could go to bars, and people would know who we were. They didn’t care that some of us weren’t 18.” He laughs. “A lot of strange guys bought me beers.”

“And, you know. We were all on the same level. Well. Some of us were.” His eyes narrow. “Everyone was thinking about the draft. So everyone had a lot of friends and a lot of enemies. Sometimes they were the same person.”

Bitty curls one hand into a fist to keep from saying the name out loud. Not that he has to. It’s hanging in the air, heavy as fog.

Jack sighs. Bitty can see him deflate, the weight of all the words he’s spoken crashing down onto his shoulders. “Bits,” he says, and there’s a wobble in his voice. “I want to tell you about Kent. I’m _going_ to tell you. Just. Maybe not tonight.”

His gaze catches Bitty’s. Bitty feels the plea in it, a spark of a question Jack’s not asking out loud.

He struggles to find his own voice. “Sweetheart,” he says. “Whenever you want to tell me is fine. Tomorrow, next week, next year, never. I’m here. And… thank you.”

“I’m going to tell you,” Jack says again. His eyes squeeze shut for a second, like he’s wincing.

“Okay.” Bitty applies the word like a salve. “Okay, honey. I believe you.”

In bed that night, Bitty thinks about a very small Jack, the same age as his campers maybe, whizzing around the ice and outplaying dozens of other tiny kids. Tiny Jack, dominating on the ice and trying to be just like Dad. Bitty remembers trying to be like his dad, but that was a doomed desire from the start, and he was pretty quick to realize it. But Jack, brimming with all that talent, forever chasing a shadow constantly skating away from him. It hurts Bitty’s heart to think of.

And he thinks about Kent Parson, and the story that he has yet to hear, and it hurts even worse.

Jack’s so strong, and so good, and whatever Parson did to him, Jack didn’t deserve it. On this Bitty’s made up his mind. And he doesn’t care to have that mind changed, no matter what Jack ends up telling him. His fist clenched around his sheet, he tells himself to stop thinking about it. It’s not an easy directive to obey.

He finally finds relief, strangely enough, in repeating Shitty’s creative uses of the word “fuck” to himself. “ _Fuck-a-doodle-doo,”_ he mumbles angrily at the wall. “ _Mack Fucktrucks. Fuckenstein.”_ He compiles a list of them in his head, tries to repeat them all without missing one. Eventually, the angry mumbles fade to murmurs, then to repetitions in his head. With _fuck_ as his lullaby, Bitty eventually finds sleep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> How would you guys feel about a few chapters from Jack’s perspective? Or do you like staying with Bitty through the whole narrative? I’m open.


	24. Chapter 24

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wednesday, June 17, 2015.

Jack’s world is upside down.

Upside down in a good way, mostly. But upside down, nonetheless. Jack feels like an hourglass upended - all the grains of feeling and thought that were safe and secure locked away in his mind are now shifting and funneling down through his body. He finds himself wanting to say things. Wanting to do things he never imagined before. Wanting to share, to be open, to be real. They’re unfamiliar sensations. And he is in uncharted territory.

It’s all Bits’ fault. No matter how he looks at it, he comes to the same conclusion. Eric Bittle is the reason for all of it. There is no place he is now that he cannot trace back to Bitty. Not the way he plays now, still focused but open and attentive, always aware of his teammates on the ice; not the way he socializes with the guys, accepting their good-natured chirping with a smile and a shrug; not even the way he eats. He hasn’t been this aware of his sweet tooth since he was seven. And that’s all because of Bitty.

It should be annoying. All he’s ever dreamed of is to play professional hockey. And now he’s there. Embarking on his dream job with an amazing team, poised to begin his life. His brain should be full of plays and shots and strategies. Instead, it’s full of bright brown eyes and a honeyed voice, long slender limbs and a heart that’s bigger than any he’s ever known. The Falconers should be the best thing that’s ever happened to him, but they’ve got some stiff competition.

And Jack can’t bring himself to feel bad about that. Not one bit.

Bitty deserves the world. And Jack wants to deliver, in whatever way he can. He considers sending him gifts, buying him season tickets, bestowing any number of favors on him that come with his new status and money. But he knows Bitty better than that. What Bitty values most is conversation and connection. He wants to share everything with Jack, and he wants (Jack knows, though he’s never said it outright) the same in return. Jack wants to fulfill that desire, as keenly as he aches to be in the same room with Bits again and satisfy every other desire churning inside of both of them.

So he’s tried. Little by little, he’s tried. Telling Bitty about his anxiety was a step. And last night he tried to do it one better, talking about his childhood, how he ended up where he was at the age of 16. He was successful in laying it out without getting too maudlin, he thinks. And he got most of it out. But then he ran up against a brick wall. A brick wall with golden hair and shaggy eyebrows and a mouth that’s always known just how to undo Jack, in one way or another. And he had to stop.

Kent was on his mind a lot today. Way more than Jack would like. Only the whirr of the blades and the cold of the ice could banish him for a time. The minute he stepped off the ice, the memories were back, and they loomed over Jack, a hot shadow.

Mostly, he thinks about how to tell the story. It’s so complicated, and full of so many conflicting emotions, that Jack’s afraid he’s going to leave something out. There’s how they met in the Q, how they got along at first, how they got on the ice together and everything changed. There’s the parties and the late nights, the numb pleasure that fell over Jack, the way Kent started looking like the answer to all his problems. There are the parts he probably won’t tell Bitty in any detail, because Bitty won’t want to know, and Jack won’t want to relive them. And then there’s the end, when the bottom fell out of Jack’s world.

But there’s also what happened after Jack went to school. And the night Bitty overheard them. That’s going to be so much harder to explain.

There’s got to be a way to tell it. Probably not one that won’t hurt, but can he at least minimize the pain? Jack has to hope so. Bitty deserves to know. And maybe, through telling it, Jack will be able to feel like Kent -- that the complicated monster that was Parse and Zimms -- is finally part of his past.

If he really is.

The thoughts weary him, and when he finally sits down at his desk at the end of the day, he doesn’t feel like he has the strength to start. He sighs and clicks on Bitty’s name.

“Hi, Jack!”

God, that smile. That smile is like rebirth, every time. Jack’s fatigue falls away. He lifts a hand to the screen, as though he could draw Bitty through the miles for a kiss. “Hey.”

“Aw, you look a little tired. Hard skate today?”

Jack shrugs. “Not too bad. How was camp?”

He gets a million-watt grin in answer. “Camp is the best. Camp is _always_ the best. We had an amazing game of capture the flag. Battle of the sexes. The girls dominated, which, of course they did, you don’t get in the way of a group of eight-to-ten-year-old girls who wants something. But gosh, poor Isabella. She’s not the athletic type, so she was hanging back near her team’s home base afraid to run. I felt so bad for her. Some kids are fearless on the field, but some of them just aren’t, you know what I mean? Isabella’s happiest when she’s writing stories in her little notebook. I hope she comes out of her shell a little as the summer goes on, though. I’m thinking she might make friends with Emma. Emma complimented her unicorns. And if two eight-year-olds can’t bond over unicorns…”

The prattle falls over Jack like a cleansing rain. There was a time when this drove him crazy, when he was about ready to search Bitty for an “off” button. But it’s different now. Now he could drown happily in the torrent of words. It feels good to just let Bitty run off, talking about silly sweet trivialities, every second a respite from the thoughts and memories that have been plaguing him since this morning.

As though he needed any further proof that Bitty is good for him. God, Bitty is good for him in all the ways that Kent was bad for him. Jack could make a list. But he’s not going to, because he does _not want to think about Kent any more tonight._

“Hey, Bits,” he says, when the stream of conversation falters.

Bitty’s “hm?” is so perfectly innocent and good-natured, Jack almost feels bad saying anything.

Still, he forges ahead. “Thanks for listening last night.”

“Oh, no, honey! Thank you for talking to me. I hope it felt good, or it helped you somehow. You know, I just want to be here for you, so if you ever want to talk to me about anything, I hope you know you can.”

“And… “ Jack heaves a sigh. “Thanks for being patient. Like I said, there’s more. I just…”

“You’re not ready yet.” Bitty’s voice mellows, deepens a little.  “That’s okay. I’ll be here when you are.”

“I hope you’ll…” And at once Jack can’t quite look at him. “I hope you’ll stick around after.”

In the end, that’s what he’s scared of. He’s afraid that if Bitty knows everything, knows how Jack fell back in time that night -- knows how his pulse leapt under Kent’s hands and how, for a moment, he was 17 and stupid and desperate for touch again -- he won’t want him. Because why should Bitty want someone who still gets stuck in the past, however rarely?

Bitty isn’t having a bit of it. “Oh, _please_ ,” he says, pouting a bit. God, Jack loves that pout. He wants to kiss it until Bitty’s lips are swollen and his breath is coming short. “I don’t foresee you telling me anything that’s gonna send me packing. Maybe if you turn out to be an ax murderer. And even then I think we can probably talk things out.” His laugh, short and staccato, lightens Jack’s heart. “Seriously, Jack. I’m not in any hurry. We’ve got plenty of time. And _lots_ of other things to talk about in the meantime.”

Jack’s lips twist. “Like what? More desert island questions?”

“Oh, are you _still_ going on about that? No, let’s talk about your teammates. You told me about Tater and Stevens. What about the rest of them?”

“Um.” Jack racks his brain. “There’s Wents. You’ve probably heard of him.”

“Brian Wentworth? Oh, hell, yes! What’s he like?”

“He’s a solid guy. Everyone gives him hell for being whipped, because Pam -- his wife -- is so out there. But she’s always been nice to me, so I don’t really know where that reputation comes from. His or hers. I guess she was on some kind of reality show?”

Bitty rolls his eyes so wide Jack can practically hear them rattling in their sockets. “I keep forgetting just how out of the loop you are. Yes, she was on ’some kind of reality show.’ Going on. What about Snow?”

“Snowy is … haha. He has a filthy mouth.” Jack goes through the roster, telling Bitty this and that about the guys. It still feels kind of like talking about strangers. All the skates they’ve had are optional, and aside from Tater, nobody bothers coming to more than half of them. (Jack can’t imagine why. What could be more important than making sure they come out of the gate in October ready to shoot straight for the Cup?) So he doesn’t really know them that well, despite the handful of events he’s attended. And of course, the senior members of the team aren’t even back yet. Martin and Thurston and the other guy whose name Jack can’t remember. Jack expects they’ll sail in at the end of September, smooth as a fleet of ships, all rested and ready to take on the world.

Bitty interrupts, asks a few questions, but mostly sits there with bright eyes taking in Jack’s every word like he’s memorizing it. Jack trails off a few times, distracted by the shine in those eyes. Bitty has to guide him back to the topic. Too bad. Jack kind of wants to sit there and just look at him for a few minutes.

A prickle of guilt assaults him toward the end. He fears he’s just been distracting himself, talking rings around the topic he _ought_ to address. But, he realizes, during these several minutes, Kent Parson’s been the furthest thing from his mind. Bitty’s presence, his engagement drag Jack out of the past, out of the morass of his own thoughts, and pull him into the immediate, gleaming present.

Bitty’s the cure for the malaise that is Kent’s hold over Jack. Jack likes not thinking about him. He likes the person he is in this moment. He wants to stay here.

But to stay, he has to open up. And opening up means he’ll have to relive everything. Maybe not tonight, but eventually.

They keep it light tonight, talking this and that. Toward the end, Jack has the uncontrollable urge to tell Bitty he’s looking cute. Bitty’s blush is immediate and fierce, and Jack’s heart curls up with joy. To think he was blind to this for so long. To think he was up in his room with Kent that night, when Bitty was right there, offering everything Jack was too stupid to know he needed. If Jack could go back, he’d do it all so differently.

Maybe.

It’s that “maybe” that stills him, as he slips into bed that night. Bitty told him once that he thought everything happened just the way it was supposed to. But Jack’s not sure. If he had only been more aware, smarter. Then maybe he would have seen Bitty for the blessing he is sooner, and maybe he never would have ended up in that room with Kent, with the past hanging in the air so thick Jack could taste it.

But he wasn’t. And it happened. All of it happened.

Jack wants Bitty. He wants this new world, this new self he’s creating when they’re together. He doesn’t want to be tied to the past, or Kent, or the world and the self that Kent represents. But he’s still not sure how to let it all go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoa, this went into an angsty place. 
> 
> I know the subject of Kent, and what if any feelings Jack still harbors for him, is a very touchy subject for some. If anyone is concerned about the direction I’m going re: Jack and Kent, hit me up on Twitter or Tumblr and I’ll attempt to reassure. But this is 100% a Jack/Bitty fic. 200%. 500%. I prooooomisse.
> 
> Recycling some of the Falconers I created for a ficlet back in the day. You might remember Pam Wentworth from the WAGs ficlet I wrote (If you find "Stuff Tippy Wrote - Check Please Edition" here on AO3, it's chapter 11!).
> 
> Sorry, they didn’t talk about much of anything tonight. I had a few ideas for how things might go, but none of them felt right.
> 
> Not sure who will have the next POV. I meant to stay with Jack for a while but now I’m not sure. We’ll see what happens tomorrow while I’m moving boxes and editing an 88-page report. (If anything happens tomorrow.)


	25. Chapter 25

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friday, June 19, 2015.

Everything always feels so much better on the ice.

Jack threw himself into practice yesterday. He faced off with Wents in a scrimmage that went on far longer than it was supposed to. Wents is all ease and balance on the ice, as fluid and practical as Jack is intense and passionate. “Ease up there, tiger,” Wents said in the faceoff circle, winking at Jack, and it fueled Jack’s desire to show him up. He won that faceoff. Later, Wents clapped him on the back and complimented him. Jack’s heart swelled with pride.

It was an interesting day, to say the least. Tater was on his right wing during the scrimmage, and big as he is, he was fast and responsive. It reminded Jack of another right wing he’s played with recently. That perfect lineup. The combination of speed and power, the no-thinking instinctive shots. Of course, he and Bitty had a year and a half on the same line to get that kind of chemistry. It’s nowhere near there with Tater, not yet, but there’s promise.

After practice, Tater asked him to go out that night. “I take you to real nice place,” he said.Tater’s definition of a real nice place ended up being _unusual._

Which is all preface to the fact that Jack didn’t get to Skype Bitty last night. When he finally crawled his way home, it was 1:30 and Jack was exhausted. Bitty’s texts had told him _don’t worry about it, go out with your teammates!_ But Jack still was tempted to call, to wake Bitty up and just see his sleep-slack face for a few minutes before dropping off himself. He stared at his laptop for several minutes, then pulled up the folder (patiently created by Ransom as Jack stood there cluelessly and asked what an SD card was) of his photos from his senior project.

Bitty laughing. Bitty in the kitchen, flour on his nose, shooing Nursey away from a fresh-baked pie. Bitty and Shits, up on the Reading Room, waving down at the front yard. The team on a skate, Bitty in the foreground, skating diagonally instead of straight ahead like a showoff at a community rink. The gang huddled together on the green couch, starry-eyed about a handful of pies. Bitty turning to the camera, huge brown eyes wide, caught in a moment of thought. Bitty bathed in sunlight, bookbag slung high on his shoulder, marching to class.

Jack really should have seen this coming long ago.

He woke up this morning feeling as though he was coming out of a fog. Last night’s events brought several things into focus. First, Jack is starting a brand new life, making new friends and embarking on his dream career. If there was ever a clean break from the past, this is it: new connections on the ice, new camaraderies off it, and a new face to carry in Jack’s heart in that special place where it was always meant to fit. Had he really been consumed by his past two and three days ago? It seems ridiculous now. He can strip it down like his gear and cast it aside. It’s that simple.

Second, Bitty is amazing and Jack misses him like hell.

He calls Bitty once at 6:30, but there’s no answer. Again at 7. At 7:30 Bitty texts him: _:o why’d you call twice is everything ok :o_ Jack texts back that everything’s fine, he’ll call again at 8. The minutes drag.

At 8, the face that appears on his screen is a little pale. “Are you sure everything’s okay? With you calling me so much, I got to worrying…”

“It’s fine,” Jack tells him. It is patently unfair that he can’t run his fingers over Bitty’s face right now, trace the line of his jaw with his thumb. “Sorry about last night.”

“Oh, no, it’s all right. It’s not like I was sitting there in my bedroom doing nothing, anyway! I went over to Peter’s. He showed me how he braids challah. I have eaten my share of challah but I’ve never gotten a chance to help make it before! Did you know that there are different kinds? The regular kind for the Sabbath is braided, but on the Jewish New Year it’s round, and it has raisins and they dip it in…”

Jack sits back in his chair, crossing his legs and listening to Bitty talk. It’s comforting, the endless humming in the speakers and the warmth rising up from the screen. Today, more than most days, Jack feels blessed. No wonder his life had been dark before. He hadn’t even known he was missing this kind of light.

When he can get a word in edgewise, Jack tells Bitty about the misadventure with Tater. “He said he wanted to go to a place called the Red Room. I thought it was some kind of restaurant. It ... um… it wasn’t.” He scratches at his cheek, chuckling ruefully. “I told him no way, I wasn’t going to do that, and I have to give Tater credit, he was fine with it. We ended up going to a bar instead. Well, three bars. Tater was on the hunt for Providence’s best vodka shot.”

“Oh no! Did he get wasted?”

“Only a little south of buzzed. Tater’s a big guy. I think it takes more than a few for him. Mostly, we spent a lot of time talking. And, um, trying to get a little privacy. People know Tater around here.”

“Y’all got hit on,” Bitty deftly translates. “Oh, Lord, I’ll bet there was an ocean of them.”

“Not _that_ many, but yeah. After a while Tater looked at me and said I was rejecting so many girls, he couldn’t figure out my type. I told him I didn’t have one, and he said--” and Jack inwardly winces at his own Tater impression--  “Everybody have type. Think hard. What Zimmerman type?’”

“Haha! That’s a good question, Jack. What _is_ your type?”

“I didn’t think I had one. But he kept asking, and I’d had a beer, so… I ended up saying I thought confidence was sexy. Confidence and energy. And blond hair. I told him I like blonds. Blonds who are into hockey.”

“Oh!” Bitty pinks, then frowns. “Well, when you think about it good and hard, I suppose that is your type, isn’t it? You like confident blond hockey players.”

“I don’t--” Jack frowns. “That’s just you. How is that a type?”

“It’s not _just_ me,” Bitty notes. The smile slides off his face, and there’s frost in his tone.

The gears take a moment to click into place. But when they do -- _oh._ He hadn’t thought about it that way. “I wasn’t thinking of him. I was thinking of you.”

“I get that,” Bitty says, a trifle testily. “But a pattern is a pattern. There’s nothing wrong with having a type.”

A tight knot swells in Jack’s chest. “You’re _nothing_ like him,” he says, feeling and hearing the charge in his own voice. “Can we not talk about him tonight?”

Bitty stills. “I. Of course, Jack. Sorry.”

“It’s fine. I know we have to talk about him. Maybe-- maybe tomorrow. But not tonight.”

“Okay.” Bitty’s still a little quiet, a little tentative, and Jack has a hunch he’s inadvertently disturbed something he should have left sleeping. Jack’s not so good at guessing about people’s feelings, but he has a sick, lurching sensation in his gut telling him that this particular stone will stay turned until Jack sets it to rest once and for all.  He probably can’t put it off much longer. But maybe just for one more night.

“Thanks,” Jack says. “I just -- tonight I want to think about you.”

“Okay.” Jack can see him set the matter aside, then come back to himself. He gives a coy smile and shifts, rising up off his ass and switching to his knees. “What part of me do you want to think about, then?”

The first response that comes to Jack’s mind is a chirp -- _your right hand and how I’m amazed there’s no phone in it --_ but he lets it pass. There are better ways to occupy his time. “Your ear,” he says, trying to bite down a smile.

“My what? My _ear?_ ” Bitty claps his hands over the sides of his head. “Wait. Both ears? Left ear? Right ear? Why my ears?”

Yes, that’s the bewilderment Jack was shooting for. “Your left ear,” he says, motioning to the right side of the screen. Bitty drops his other hand and rubs said left ear self-consciously.

“What-- what about my ear?” Now he sounds suspicious. Jack wants to laugh.

He shrugs. “It’s cute.”

“My _ear_ is _cute._ ” Now Bitty’s voice is completely flat.

“It is,” Jack confirms. “So’s your other ear, but that ear especially. I think-- um.” He runs a certain fantasy by in his head again, savoring the rush to the gut that it gives him. “I think if I kissed you there, you’d turn all red.”

“I-- if-- _Jack_ \--” There’s the rosiness, flying to his cheeks. Jack wants to warm his hands on it. “Where did this come from?”

“Thinking about you,” Jack says, and it’s true. He doesn’t know how to be smooth or suave or romantic like his father, but these things come to his mind and he wants to say them. It still amazes him that with Bitty, he can. “Your neck, too. I think about kissing that.”

The sound that falls from Bitty’s lips is one Jack would like to hang up in a private museum and listen to for the rest of his life. “You’re being a menace, Mr. Zimmermann. I won’t stand for it.”

“Stop me,” Jack says, and Bitty fumes at him. It’s fantastic.

But then Bitty gets up a head of steam himself. “Well,” he says, a wicked sparkle in his eyes, “it just so happens I think about kissing your neck too. How do you suppose you’d react to that?”

And just like that, it’s a faceoff. “I’d probably put my hands on you.”

“I’d probably touch that magnificent ass of yours, then.”

“Then I’d probably pull that shirt off of you.”

Instead of answering, without a word, Bitty pulls his shirt off. It goes sailing off to the side and out of view. And oh man, that’s a lot of pink skin and Jack’s almost lost.

 _Almost_. This is still a faceoff. And Jack wins his faceoffs.

He grabs at his own shirt, yanks it by the back of the collar, tosses it away. “Your move, Bittle.”

“Hmm…” The smile playing at the corner of Bitty’s mouth deserves to be kissed off, and kissed off _hard._ “I suppose I’ll have to put my mouth on you, then. Starting right at your shoulder. Right there.” He points to something, but the cameras-and-screens wonkiness of the setup makes it impossible for Jack to know exactly what. Bitty licks his lips. “Mm. I’ll start there and lick across, nice and slow.”

Oh, God. He can _feel_ it -- though it’s just whispers of air across his bare shoulder, the AC blowing -- all he has to do is imagine Bitty’s tongue and-- damn it, he has to say something back. “My hands, down-- down your back. And lower, and....” His hands on the desk squeeze fruitlessly at the wood.

“Oh. _Oh,_ that’s _nice._ ” Bitty closes his eyes, and Jack should really take that as a sign of surrender. But he’s busy imagining Bitty’s ass beneath his hands, and he’s in no mood to take a victory lap while that ass is still a dozen states away. “And you taste so good, Jack, I want to take a bite out of you. Just a little bite.”

Jack flinches, feeling the pressure of Bitty’s teeth on his skin, imagining the sucking kiss that comes after. “You feel good in my hands.” He’s no longer thinking. The words are just coming out. “I want to put you on my bed. Lay you down and get on top of you and--”

“ _Jack._ I’m--” Bitty’s breath is starting to come short, and he’s making no effort to hide that he’s gone hard. “I need to kiss you.”

“I _know._ ” Jack’s fingers are white-knuckled on the wood.

“We said we wouldn’t do this… _Lord._ ”  Panic in Bitty’s voice. His eyes fly open

“Two weeks,” Jack murmurs, like a mantra. “Two weeks.”

They stare at each other, panting. Jack’s heartbeat slowly spirals down to normal. He’s not sure whether he won or lost that faceoff. It feels like a little of both.

“Only two weeks,” Bitty says, more to himself than to Jack. “Thank goodness.”

“I miss you,” Jack blurts out.

Bitty looks at him like he’s just delivered the moon. “ _Honey,_ ” he breathes. “I miss you too.”

Everything throbs. Jack feels like one big raw nerve, exposed and aching. How does this feel so desperate and so good all at once? And the way Bitty's eyes are shining right now, deep and bright -- Jack may not be good at guessing at feelings, but Bitty’s equally not good at hiding them. All that trust and that raw emotion are on display, so naked even Jack isn’t blind enough to miss them. Bitty's putting everything out there for him. Jack needs to do the same. He _wants_ to.

“I’m going to call you tomorrow,” he says. “And I’m… I’m going to tell you more. Okay?”

Bitty nods. There’s none of that trepidation in him now, just acceptance. His eyes are warm. “Okay, Jack. I’ll be here.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So we are moving -- we just bought our first place -- and things are getting super hectic on the home front. That and, I’m starting to feel like I don’t have the control over these guys and their narrative that I want to have. There’s more of substance I want to cover in this fic, but I’m having some trouble finding the energy to push the narrative in the right direction. 
> 
> So I’m going to start doing this every two days instead of every day. That way I have two days to really shape the narrative and make sure they cover what I want them to cover. I’m hoping that won’t distract from the format too much and it’ll still do what I want it to do.
> 
> I can’t tell you how much your comments mean to me. When things are crazy, and I think about dropping the whole project, it’s knowing you care that keeps me going, and keeps me wanting to tell a story you’ll continue to enjoy.


	26. Chapter 26

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Saturday, June 20, and Sunday, June 21, 2015.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to make it very clear at the start of these chapters that I'll be talking specifically, and not flatteringly, about the relationship between Jack and Kent Parson. That includes speaking very frankly about the ways the both of them are fucked up and hurt each other. That said, because it's Jack's narration, and because Jack's not perfect, it's going to come down very hard on Parse. If that's not okay with you, I encourage you to skip these chapters. After this storyline is wrapped up, it will not be returned to. You can continue to have the experience you enjoy with future chapters.
> 
> Also, WARNINGS: drug abuse, alcohol abuse, verbally abusive/emotionally manipulative relationships. Please be forewarned. Let me know if there are any other warnings I should post.
> 
> (PS: indulge my paranoia, but everyone knows that "You are the shit" = "You are the greatest," right? It's not the same thing as saying "You are shit.")

**_Yesterday_ **

It’s a very long Saturday before the next Skype session. In the morning, Jack takes an extra-long jog. As the miles turn to sweat, he frowns and frets about what will come that night. If only he could pound the past away along with the pavement.

He calls Shitty, who regales him with stories of tangled traffic in the suburbs and the demolition of storied Boston institutions to make room for cookie-cutter condominiums. He’s wailing about it for a good half-hour before suddenly noting, “Brah, I just realized. You called me. You _never_ call me. What the fuck.”

“What, I can’t call?” Jack says with a laugh.

“No, dude, you _can’t._ What the fuck is _up?_ ”

“I…” Jack runs a hand through his hair. “It turns out I’m gonna have to talk about some things that happened before. Things I don’t really want to think about.”

“Ah, gotcha, gotcha. The brass wants to know your inside story. Covering their bases, I guess. But you’re cool. Yours is a story of recovery and redemption. It’s fucking inspiring is what it is.”

“Yeah. Something like that.”

“Well, don’t sit around and stew about it. Get the fuck out of the house. Go to the library and read about some godawful war. Better yet. Ditch the brass and come up and _rescue me._ ”

“About that.” Jack remembers Bitty’s admonition to give in and visit.. “What does next weekend look like for you?”

By the end of the call, Jack’s firmed up plans to head up next Friday night and spend a weekend with Shitty. He feels a lot better. It’ll be a good time. And this was a nice reminder that he’s got friends now. Real ones. Whatever he ends up telling Bitty tonight will still be stories about the past. He’s _past_ it. That’s what the word means. He’s _got_ a present.

He doesn’t go to the library, but he does go out for lunch and sit on a park bench watching people go by and following the SMH group chat. There’s some chatter about this year’s draft picks, since the draft is just a week away. Jack’s been following it with some interest -- he did prospect camps with a couple of the guys -- and he throws in an opinion here and there. He gets a lot of “ _shut up zimmermann you’re biased now._ ”

Separately, he texts Bitty. Bitty’s baking. That is, it occurs to him, akin to saying Bitty’s breathing.

Both sets of texts make him smile.

So he’s in a good place when he sits down at 8:30 to call. He’s got the present, he’s got the ties of his friends and this new amazing thing with Bitty. Surely that’s going to be enough to power him through whatever stories he needs to tell tonight.

It is apparently not enough for Bitty. Bitty is sitting at his desk for once, and there is an entire pie sitting between him and the camera.

“So it’s a chocolate peanut butter pie,” Bitty says instead of hello. “Which isn’t usually my type, well, not in the summer when the summer fruits are so good. And you know me, I’m usually a stress baker and not a stress eater. But something told me tonight I might need something sweet.”

Jack wishes more than anything that he could reach through that screen and grab himself a slice. But even if the Internet could work that particular miracle, cheat day’s not till next Saturday. “Probably a good move,” he agrees.

“So,” Bitty says. “Um. You were going to tell me some things.”

“I was.” Jack nods. He wonders if he should ask Bitty about his day, make some small talk. But they’ve been texting all day long. So there’s not really much left to say.

Bitty fidgets. “I’m not gonna lie to you, Jack. I’m just about a heap of nerves over this. I know it’s all over and done with now, and probably I shouldn’t even care about it, but…”

“No, no. It’s fine.” Jack feels the same way about all of it. “Do you want to, um, talk about anything else first?”

“Naw. I think we should just get to it. You know, rip off the ol’ Band-Aid.” Bitty winces, as though that’s what’s really happening.  “If you’re ready.”

Jack looks at Bitty, studies his face. His jaw is set, his lower lip pushed forward in a stony expression that’s almost a pout. He’s seen this face before. On the ice, first and foremost. When they’re on the starting line, and the guy on Bitty is the size of a freight train, and the puck hasn’t dropped yet -- that’s the look that Bitty gives. It’s all about screwing up his courage and staying present in the face of a threat. Bitty’s going to face this the way he faces his greatest fear. If he can do it, so can Jack.

“The first thing I need you to understand,” he says quietly, “is that I wasn’t the same person. The things I did, the things I needed… I don’t need them now. That… that includes Kent.” Saying the name feels like breaking a seal. “I don’t want him in my life, and I don’t need him anymore. I’ve told him that. He knows it. I think that’s why he--” He shakes his head. “Well. I don’t need him.”

“But back then. Back then was different.”

* * *

> Everything feels like it’s buzzing. The air around him, the blood under his skin, the ice beneath him. He’s so aware, through each microsecond, of the momentous nature of what he’s doing, and it makes everything vibrate. He's here. He's on the ice for the Q.This is the next step. From here on out, everything matters.
> 
> His father’s told him as much. “The minors are one thing,” he’s said. “But from now on, people will be paying attention. Clubs will be watching your games, scouts will be at your practices. Every step you make will determine where you end up on that list. Don’t forget it, son. Don’t let yourself forget it for a minute.”
> 
> And he won’t. He’s not forgotten in for a minute of the years that have passed. He’s built a reputation, one that’s going to garner him attention. Because of his name, but because of his playing, too. He expected the eyes on him going in. But that doesn’t mean he’s used to them. He can feel each gaze, hear each whisper. A silent cacophony, surrounding him always.
> 
> And then, shattered --  by a high tenor laugh, a whizz of fabric, the gleam of skates.
> 
> “Well, shit, you’re slow! I never thought you’d be slow. Move that famous ass of yours, Zimmermann.”
> 
> The stranger skates away. Jack frowns. He speeds up, pushes through the exercise. Not fast enough, though. Not according to the blond with the brash laugh and the wide smile. “This is the famous Jack Zimmermann? Seriously? That’s the best you can do? Jesus Christ, we’re doomed.”
> 
> He skates on. Frustration mounts in Jack’s chest. He’s already feeling slow and subpar -- he doesn’t need someone to come along and say it out loud. His gaze goes, to the name on the guy’s jersey -- Parson -- like he’s homing in on a target. Jack pushes off and sets out to get his hands on it. He’ll drag this guy down if he has to, anything to shut up that laughter.
> 
> It takes him three practices. His calves are burning and his lungs feel like concrete blocks by the end of that third infuriating chase, but his gloves are clutched around that blue lettering and he’s dragging this Parson down to the ice. Parson scrambles to get back upright. Jack rises to his feet, waiting for him, ready with a closed fist. Parson starts to take a swing.
> 
> “Parson! Zimmermann! Enough.”
> 
> It’s not the last time they’ll be separated, but it’s the one that stings the most, as Jack’s forced away with his fist still clenched. The coach spits when he screams, and he screams long and loud at them both. Jack’s face is wet behind the cage.
> 
> But the screaming’s not the worst of it, no. The worst comes the next time they’re scrimmaging, and the captain sets them out on the same line, Jack on Parson’s right wing.  They glare daggers at each other. What the hell is Parson out to prove, anyway? Whatever it is, Jack’s not going to let him have it. He’ll fight the way he always fights -- by playing the best damn hockey he can.
> 
> And he does. Every time Parson looks to make a pass, Jack’s right there. He slings the puck back, catches it when it returns, zips forward again. Within five minutes he’s got a shot. He swings it in, easy. Smirks at Parson, who gives him a sideways, appraising look.
> 
> Back to the game. Jack’s right there again, right where Parson needs somebody to be. But this time he hasn’t got his clean shot. The defense closes in. He looks for a place to put the puck and there’s Parson, right where he should be, open and ready. Jack swings the puck to him. Parson drives at it, slams it forward. Right into the net. A golden goal, perfectly placed.
> 
> This time it’s Parson catching his eye. And smiling. He gives Jack a nod. They go back and do it all over again.
> 
> At the end, Parson skates over and puts a hand on Jack’s shoulder. They’re both breathless, exhilarated. “Not bad,” he says, the first time Jack hasn’t felt poison dripping from his words. Maybe there’s another side to him.  Maybe the dickishness is just a mask.
> 
> “You, too,” Jack says. Something sings in his heart.

* * *

“After that,” Jack says, “we got along better. They paired us all the time, and we started hanging out. Kent knew people, he got us into some places I never would have thought to go.” He scratches his head. “And, you know. He got me in there, he bought the drinks. And if Kent was going to drink, so was I.”

* * *

> After a win in Edmonton. Jack’s slumping over a couch in a fancy lounge, Parse on a chair. There are girls around them. Parse has his arm around one. To Jack they’re furniture. Parse is the show. “Yeah,” he’s telling the girl, “you keep your eye out for us. We’re gonna be famous. And you can say you knew us when, huh? Right, Zimms? You and me, bro. Well. Mostly me. You’re gonna be eating my dust. But you can still tag along.” He reaches out for a fist bump. Jack’s so wasted, he almost misses.
> 
> Another bar, another city, another time. Parse is talking to a teammate, brandishing his beer like a weapon. “And then he fucking says to me, is that Bob Zimmermann’s kid? I couldn’t believe this shit. Like, you are looking at the future number one draft pick, and you only give a shit about some legacy? People are weird about their icons, man. I mean, just look at Jackie over here. He’s so shitfaced he thinks he’s in Oz. That’s your fucking hero.”
> 
> Late at night, their arms slung about each other, walking down the street. Jack scored a hat trick tonight, his first in the Q. The crowd went wild. Now, there’s no more crowd, just Parse’s body heat next to his, breath hot and beer-sour on his neck. “Yo, Zimms, we’re friends, right? I can say you’re my friend? Because you are the shit, man. You are my best friend and you’re the absolute shit.”
> 
> Some other time. Parse laughing, a joke at Jack’s expense. He glances at Jack. “I only give him hell because I love him so much. Ain’t that right? Jack? You know I say it with love.”

* * *

“I got used to it. I got used to the way he talked about me, because when he did it he was drunk and I was drunk and when I was drunk, the anxiety wouldn’t --” Jack sighs. “But when I sobered up, it was worse than before. I kept shaking. So I started taking a pill in the morning. Before practice. It didn’t seem like a big deal at the time. Nobody noticed.”

He clears his throat. Shit, the shakes have started again, just remembering. He clutches his hand to his knee, feels it tremble, tries to breathe in and out again.

“And then Kent found out,” he hisses, barely a whisper.

Only the slight rattling of the chair beneath him breaks the silence that falls then.

“Honey,” Bitty says carefully. “Do you want to leave it here for now? You told me a lot.”

“There’s… a lot more.”  Part of Jack just wants to push through it all, get it all out tonight. But maybe Bitty’s right. Maybe it’s time to pull himself together, return to the present.

He casts a fond gaze at Bitty’s image on the screen. “I’m glad it’s you,” he says. “I’m glad I’m telling _you._ ”

“Jack.” Bitty breathes his name. “I know it hurts, but… I’m glad you’re telling me, too.”

  
  
  


**_Today_ **

  
  


Sunday, and Jack has a tee time at 8 AM with Wents and two of the managers. He hasn’t been on a course in ages, and he plays a little rustily, but the June weather is comfortable and the conversation keeps him grounded. One of the managers, Sweeney, keeps punching Jack in the arm and making jokes that would never fly at Samwell University. Jack grimaces and reminds himself: _This is the real world._

It’s a good lesson for him to keep in mind. Samwell hockey and pro hockey are the same sport, but two very different games. The casual homophobia, the unquestioning machismo… they’re things Jack has learned to take with a grain of salt, thanks mostly to Shitty and to the culture of Samwell. But here he has to be one hundred percent okay with them, at least on the outside. Any little slip-up could open a door that, if someone were inquisitive enough to look through, would reveal far too much. Jack forgets sometimes how very much he’s hiding, but moments like this serve as a bitter reminder.

So it’s actually nice to pull up his chair and continue telling Bitty everything. In one place in his life, he can be totally honest. Even if it’s about a subject he’d rather leave behind.

* * *

> They’ve been a year and a half on the same team. Which means a year and a half ‘til they’ll be eligible for the draft, and the whispers have already started. They’re Parse and Zimms now, two halves of a legend, and fans come into the stadium with posterboard signs bearing their names. Parse points out the one that suggests Jack for Prime Minister. Jack laughs at the one that says “Parson, more like Damn Son.” They bump fists and head to center ice.
> 
> Jack’s name is on the TV a lot these days. And he’s starting to do interviews, but what’s more surprising is that his dad is starting to do them, too. It’s not uncommon for pre-game coverage these days to start with Bad Bob Zimmermann, nodding proudly and saying, “I expect great things from Jack. He’s a hard worker and a strong player, and I have no doubt he’s going to make me proud tonight.”  
> 
> Jack tries to avoid the coverage. After games, he gets drunk. It’s one pill in the morning now and one before a game. And one in the middle of the day, if things get bad. Which they do, increasingly, as the season goes on. Sometimes the pill is washed down with a beer. Sometimes Jack loses an afternoon, but he always wakes up in time to make it to the rink at night.
> 
> It’s December, and Jack’s feeling particularly terrible at pre-game strategy. As soon as he can get away, he sinks down into a crouch in a dark hallway, water bottle in one hand, pills in the other. His hands feel huge and clumsy, and he can’t get the little pill bottle open. “Shit,” he whispers,  as he fumbles. “Shit.”
> 
> “Zimms.”
> 
> Jack looks up. Tries to hide it. He’s too slow and he’s shaking too hard.
> 
> Parse rushes forward, squats, grabs the bottle out of Jack’s hand. Jack opens his mouth to protest. But Parse is already reading the label. “Shit, Jack,” he murmurs.
> 
> “They’re-- they’re not steroids,” Jack says. “They’re my--”
> 
> “What the fuck is this?” Parse brandishes the pill bottle. “What in the fuck is this, Zimms?”
> 
> “It’s… it’s my medicine.” Jack can’t stop shaking. He reaches out, and he can see his arm trembling in midair.
> 
> “This is a fucking sedative.” Parse is furious. “Why the fuck are you taking sedatives before a game?”
> 
> “It’s my medicine,” Jack says again. “Parse, come on, I need it.”
> 
> “You need this shit? Jesus, Zimms. How many games have you played on this stuff? How the hell can you even function?”
> 
> Jack’s head sinks into this hands. “Shit. Parse. Come on, please. I don’t.. Fuck.”
> 
> He sits there, shaking so hard he’s not sure he’s still in one piece, desperate and lost and completely at Parse’s mercy. They’ve got to play a game in 10 minutes. And if Jack doesn’t have that pill, doesn’t have the steadiness and the clear-headedness it brings on…
> 
> A hand lands on his shoulder. Soft. Jack looks up.
> 
> Kent’s crouching next to him. “It’s okay,” he says. “It’s okay, Jack. You do what you gotta do. Here.” He uncaps the bottle and shakes a pill into Jack’s trembling palm.
> 
> “You can’t tell anyone,” Jack pleads.
> 
> “I won’t. I wouldn’t do that to you, man. It’s our secret.”
> 
> Jack puts the pill in his mouth, swallows dry around it. Already he feels calmer. Parse’s hand on his shoulder is a salve.
> 
> “I…” he starts. “Kent… shit.”
> 
> “It’s okay. It’s okay,” Parse keeps murmuring. Jack. Jack. Zimms. It’s okay. I won’t tell anyone. You’re my best friend, man. You’re more than that, OK? You’re my other half. You and me, Zimms. Forever.”

* * *

 

Jack comes to the end of that moment, and realizes he can’t go on. This is the part Bitty doesn’t want to hear.

This is the part where Jack takes Kent aside after the game and begs him again not to say a word. And Kent answers, but not in words, and after a moment of stunned silence, Jack kisses him back. This is the part where they start setting records together, their partnership an invincible united front. And now, in addition to the parties and the booze and the games, there’s frantic fumblings in hotel rooms. Kent loving the look of Jack naked and breathless against the sheets. Jack closing his eyes and feeling the burn and thinking this is what he deserves, this is what he needs. To be focused on the sensation in his body and have the rest of it go away.

He doesn’t say any of that. What he says is, “From then on, Kent and I were…”

Bitty nods. “I see.” He’s tight-lipped. One hand’s curled into a fist on his desk.

“He wasn’t… he wasn’t good to me. Even then. He didn’t get nicer, especially in front of other people. But it was fun… in a way. We had this secret. So when he was being a jackass I told myself he was doing it for effect. So nobody would guess the truth.”

“That…” Bitty’s brows are knit together as tightly as Jack’s ever seen them. “That makes me so mad, Jack. So mad. I’m fit to be tied right now, I swear. How could he, how could _anyone_ treat you like that and say they _love_ you?”

The sight of Bitty’s fury, as much as Jack is sorry to incite it, is helpful. It pulls Jack back into the present. “He knew what I wanted to hear, I guess. In private, things were different. Mostly. And… part of it really was fun. I’d never felt like that about anybody before. I didn’t know what I was doing, but I didn’t want it to stop.”

“If.. If I were you…” Bitty starts.

“I know, I should have known better, I should have told someone--”

“No, that’s not what I’m saying at all!” The scowl’s gone, Jack realizes, and a look of sorrow has replaced it -- shining eyes and furrowed brow. “I mean. If I were you, I’d never want to put myself through that again. If that’s what love was supposed to be, and that’s how my first crack at it went… I just. I’d never believe in it again.”

“Yeah, well…” Jack tries to give a casual shrug, though he’s feeling anything but casual right now. He wants to burst right through that screen and pull Bitty into his arms until neither of them knows anything but joy. “I tried, but _somebody_ made sure I wouldn’t stay in my shell forever.”

“I don’t want to disappoint you,” Bitty says. “I don’t want to … to do anything that’ll put you back in that place, Jack. Please don’t let me.”

“You could _never_ ,” Jack tells him, meaning it fiercely. “Bits,  you’re everything he wasn’t. This-- _us_ \-- it’s so different, I don’t know how to say it.”

“Better?” Bitty offers hopefully.

Jack nods. “So much better.”

They leave it there for the night. There’s more to come -- the worst part -- but Jack needed to stop there, and Bitty understands. He wants to end the night thinking about what he’s got now, not what he had then. For every bit of magic that happened between him and Kent, there was a dark side, a shadow that followed. It’s not like that with Bitty. Jack feels safer now, in this still-new, burgeoning, exciting thing he and Bitty are building, than he ever did in a year’s worth of stealthy kisses and secret smiles with Kent. He doesn’t miss the danger. Not one bit.

And it’s thoughts of kissing Bitty’s lips, opening himself up and letting Bitty in, that drown out the unpleasant memories and flood his mind as he heads to bed. He’s going to be all right.


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to make it very clear at the start of these chapters that I'll be talking specifically, and not flatteringly, about the relationship between Jack and Kent Parson. That includes speaking very frankly about the ways the both of them are fucked up and hurt each other. That said, because it's Jack's narration, and because Jack's not perfect, it's going to come down very hard on Parse. If that's not okay with you, I encourage you to skip these chapters. After this storyline is wrapped up, it will not be returned to. You can continue to have the experience you enjoy with future chapters.
> 
> This was a very hard chapter to write. It is going to be a very hard chapter to read. If you don’t want to read it, please don’t. I had to make a lot of hard choices writing this, and nobody’s going to agree with all of them. 
> 
> TW for dysfunctional/manipulative/you-decide relationships, and for drug abuse, alcohol abuse, and overdose. Also a slight TW for my fellow emetophobes.
> 
> Please see http://tiptoe39.tumblr.com/post/146384412736/some-notes-on-kents-characterization-in-the-skype for a few author’s notes related to my characterization of Kent and my thought process writing these chapters.

**_Yesterday_ **

Jack wakes up feeling unsettled.

He doesn’t identify the cause of the feeling until midway through his morning warm-ups. It hits him halfway through a lap and he has to skate to a stop, grabbing the boards to steady himself. Tater whizzes by and shouts, “You okay there, new rookie?” Jack nods, but he’s not okay.

He feels like a liar. Not because he hasn’t been telling Bitty the truth. But he hasn’t told Bitty the _whole_ truth, either.

Part of that is simply because he didn’t go into the details of him and Kent being together. And there’s more he didn’t say, that didn’t have to do with Kent at all. It has to do with Jack himself, the things that happened to him, his mind and his will to keep fighting for his dream.

That doesn’t change who Kent was, or what he did. But it matters. Somehow it matters. And Jack needs to set it right.

Bitty picks up on his discomfort immediately that night. “Sweetheart,” he says, “what is it? Something’s really bothering you, I can tell. Is there anything I can do?”

“Yeah,” Jack says slowly, “there is. You can…. You can listen. And just, be patient with me.”

“Of course,” Bitty says, and falls silent and waiting.

Jack takes a breath. “I know I talked about things last night like Kent was-- like all he did was drag me down. The thing is, I was… damned willing to go.”

* * *

> Jack likes the way he feels when he drinks. Things slow down in his head and speed up around him. The whole world is moving at a breakneck pace, like he’s on the ice, but he doesn’t have to be aware of everything all at once. There’s no pucks, no cameras, no eyes he can feel on him. Just him, and a slow slurring happiness that makes him feel like he’s drifting off into space. That weight isn’t there anymore. His heart doesn’t stutter. He’s free.
> 
> Jack likes the way Kent talks to him, about him. He hated it at first, when it was on the ice, but that was before they learned to connect the way they do. And getting shit-talked when he’s drunk feels great. Because when he’s toasted, he’s forgotten who he’s supposed to be, and he can be just another dumb kid for a few hours. Kent lets him know he’s doing it right. And then Kent lets him know he loves him anyway.
> 
> Jack likes winning. And they keep winning. They win, and he and Kent get lifted up off the ice, surrounded by their teammates, back-slapped and crushed in hugs and cheered at. Jack’s starting, just a little, to believe in the stories they tell about him. Maybe this is fate. Maybe he _will_ glide to victory, launched by the power of his name and lifted on the wings of his talent. And when that feeling falters, there are pills, and there’s booze, and there’s Kent.
> 
> Jack likes Kent. A lot.

* * *

“The point is,” Jack says with a sigh, “I had my own problems. And Kent -- felt right. He made things better, I think _because_ he wasn’t a nice guy. Whatever he was and whatever I was-- we fit.”

He’s still not sure that fixes things. Maybe there’s no way to fix things. But it’s a little better. And even now, the bile rises in his stomach at the thought of it all, and what came next. He doesn’t know if the _whole truth_ is really within his capacity to tell.

“My anxiety stayed a problem,” he goes on. “There were good times-- but mostly, I felt like I was carrying around a weight all day, every day. And as things got closer to the draft, it got worse.“

* * *

> They’re 18 now and it’s a half-year to the draft. They can no longer leave a hotel room or get into the stadium without being surrounded by media. All the papers say it’s the most excitement surrounding an NHL draft in a generation. Everywhere the same headline: _WHO WILL BE #1?_ Jack starts wearing sunglasses and baseball hats everywhere he goes. It doesn’t help much.
> 
> Jack’s not very good at talking to the press. Or, rather, he’s adequate, but no more than adequate. He can answer a question. But Kent can project an entire personality in the span of a five-second video clip. He has a sunny smile and a confident glint in his eye, and when he speaks it’s always off-the-cuff and charming. “Zimms and I?” he’ll say, as though nobody’s ever broached the subject before. “No, we’re cool. It’s just some healthy competition. May the best player win.”
> 
> In private he’s even kinder. “Hey, we’re both going pro!” he says when Jack’s worries dampen his mood. “Look, Jack, all this shit about who’s gonna be number one is just shit. Of course, it’s gonna be me,” he’ll add with a wink and a grin, “but when you think about it, what does it matter if you’re number one or number two or number thirteen? It’s how you play when you get there.”
> 
> _What does it matter?_ Jack asks himself that question over and over at night. Why does he care so damn much if he’s first? But that’s the way the story goes. It’s been told to him over and over. Not just by his parents but by the media, too. Almost every day there’s a new article that leads off with _All eyes are on Bad Bob Zimmermann’s son as he appears poised to take the top slot in this year’s draft, carrying on the Zimmermann hockey dynasty…_ And Jack can feel all those eyes on him. All of them, every moment of every day.
> 
> He takes more pills. Sometimes he misses practice. Kent’s still there to get him up in time for a game, even if sometimes that involves slapping or cold water. He drinks a lot of black coffee, and his stomach’s starting to turn sour. It’s all worth it, he knows it. He just needs what he needs to get through one more day. Kent tells him it’s okay. Kent always tells him everything’s going to be okay.
> 
> At least things on the ice are great. The best they’ve ever been. He and Kent connect flawlessly. They rack up too many goals to count. Their team’s so far ahead of the rest, it’s barely even a competition anymore. And when they celebrate, they celebrate in style -- drinking and carousing, then running back to their shared hotel room for another kind of celebration.
> 
> In those moments, Jack could never dream that a single word would ruin it all.
> 
> * * *

 

**Today**

“This is the hard part,” he tells Bitty as they start their chat that night.

“Oh, dear,” Bitty says, and Jack wishes more than anything he could comfort him. But there’s no comfort to be had tonight. There’s only pain.

* * *

> Jack slams the door to the hotel room. He’s so flush with rage, he can barely breathe. “What the hell, Kent?”
> 
> Kent looks up from his video game. “What the-- the fuck, Jack, you’re drunk!”
> 
> “Of course I’m drunk!” Jack pounds the back of the door. “Have you _seen_ what they’re saying?”
> 
> “What-- what are they saying? What the hell are you talking about? Calm down, Zimms. Have a seat. I’ll get you some water.”
> 
> Jack stalks to the center of the room and gestures. “Turn on the TV.”
> 
> “Zimms, sit the fuck d--”
> 
> “Turn on,” Jack seethes, “the goddamn TV.”
> 
> Kent grabs the remote, flips it on. It’s tuned to the same station they watch every night, the same bushy-haired woman at the anchor desk reading the headlines. As they watch, text flashes onto the screen: TROUBLE IN PARADISE FOR ZIMMERMANN?
> 
> “In case you’re just joining us, we’re talking about the comment Kent Parson made tonight after the Océanic’s surprising loss,” she says. The scene switches -- to Kent muscling his way through a row of press, the same way he has every night for months.  Flashbulbs illuminate his skin, giving it a sickly pallor. A microphone is thrust in front of his face as someone asks a question.
> 
> “No, of course not,” Kent says, his tone casual and light. “I love Zimms. He’s still a really strong player, considering.”
> 
> _Considering._
> 
> Even hearing it for the fourth time, Jack can’t believe it.
> 
> Kent pushes ahead and out of view as the reporters yell after him. “Considering? Considering what? What’s going on with Jack Zimmermann?” The coverage cuts to footage from tonight’s game, a slow-motion capture of Jack missing an easy pass. The anchorwoman says something about Zimmermann not connecting. Jack looks away. Kent switches the TV off.
> 
> “That’s what you’re pissed about?” Kent says. “One fucking word?”
> 
> “It’s a pretty fucking big word,” Jack shoots back. “What the hell were you implying?”
> 
> “I wasn’t implying anything!” Kent rises, throws up his hands. “I was just answering a damn  question! Christ, Zimms. You think I was in the best fucking mood tonight?”
> 
> “What did it _mean?_ ” Jack presses.
> 
> “I don’t know! Look at your fucking self and answer that question, you shitfaced, drugged-up--” Kent cuts himself off at the sight of Jack’s face.
> 
> “Parse.” He can’t fit his mouth around _Kent_ , and even this comes out small and scared. “You _promised._ ”
> 
> “I didn’t say anything,” Kent says, shaking his head vehemently. “I didn’t say a single goddamn thing, Jack, and I won’t. I told you I won’t.”
> 
> “You-- you have to go out there.” Jack’s shaking now. All he can hear are those reporters, yelling _considering? Considering what?_ “You have to tell them you didn’t mean--.”
> 
> He sees the ire rise in Kent’s eyes and knows he’s made a mistake.
> 
> “It is not my goddamn fault that reporters are pains in the ass! And it is not my goddamn fault that you’re a fucking mess, Zimmermann. You should thank me for being there to wake you up when you’re passed-out half-dead after drinking too much or taking your damn pills. I let one fucking word slip and suddenly I’m the bad guy here? Take some fucking responsibility!”
> 
> “And whose fault is that?” Jack shoots back. “Who was the one who said, way back when, lighten up a little, Zimms, get a little toasted?”
> 
> “God _damn_ it, Jack! You do _not_ get to blame me for the fact that _you_ can’t handle yourself!”
> 
> Jack can’t find any words to answer.
> 
> At last, he crumples onto one of the beds, his head going into his hands. “Shit--  this-- this can’t be happening. It can’t be happening.” He’s there, breathing with difficulty, for several minutes before there’s any other movement in the room.
> 
> At last, Kent comes forward, laying a hand on his shoulder. “Jesus. Zimms. Jack,” he says. “You’re drunk, you’re worked up. All of this is gonna pass tomorrow. They’ll be onto something else. It was one fucking word, Christ.”
> 
> “Right,” Jack says, praying for the strength to believe it. “Right. It’ll all be over tomorrow.”

* * *

“It wasn’t,” Jack says. “It wasn’t over by a long shot. The media -- they got in my face -- and Kent, he never went out there and told them it was a slip of the tongue. And things started to go downhill. I started making mistakes. Stupid ones. And every time they’d play one, they’d have some headline on the TV, like, ‘Zimmermann, troubled genius.’” He laughs, but it’s not a happy sound. “They didn’t know what was wrong with me, but something had to be wrong. That became the story. Watch Zimmermann Junior fall apart.”

“Oh, gosh,” Bitty murmurs. He’s doing his best to stay in the background, but even he can’t help a little gasp as Jack tells his story. “Honey, that must have been so hard for you. And to think he wouldn’t even say anything.”

“Things got bad between us,” Jack answers. “I couldn’t let go of this idea that maybe he said it on purpose, to try to throw the media on my trail. There was this part of Kent that was so competitive. I couldn’t quite put it past him. And to be honest, I still don’t know the truth about it. I probably never will.”

* * *

> They fight now. They fight, but they win games, and that’s all anybody cares about. But the big question is no longer _Will Zimmermann be #1?_ Now it’s _Will Zimmermann lose his shot?_ And it’s Kent’s face plastered all over the TV now -- _As Zimmermann loses ground, Parson looks better and better for slot #1._ Sportscasters swear they have inside info on teams’ internal negotiations. “The word is, Zimmermann might be a genius,” they say, “but Parson’s a sure thing. It’s all about how much you want to gamble.”
> 
> Jack tries easing up on the drugs. It makes him shaky. Minute trembles that don’t show, but do foul up his timing just enough to be a problem. He can still connect with Kent on the ice. But when he’s in the clutch and the shot has to come _now_ \- that’s when things get iffy. Now it’s Parson with the goals, Zimmermann with the assists. It used to be even odds who’d make the shot. But the balance is slipping.
> 
> And occasionally, it slips so badly that they lose.
> 
> “Where the fuck were you?” Kent demands after a bad loss to Victoriaville. “We’ve done that play a dozen times.”
> 
> “I-- their D-man got in my face--” but Jack cuts off, because it’s an excuse. He knows it and Kent knows it.
> 
> “I mean mentally, Zimms. You were on another planet.”
> 
> “It’s-- it’s hard for me to concentrate without the--”
> 
> “Then take the damn drugs,” Kent snaps at him. “God damn it, Jack, you have a _job._ ”
> 
> Jack’s boggled. “You didn’t just say that.”
> 
> Kent thrusts both his hands into his hair and closes them into fists. “God fucking damn it,” he says. “I don’t know. I don’t know what the right thing to do is. This is why I said, go to the goddamn coaches with this. You can’t handle it on your own.”
> 
> “You know I can’t do that,” Jack says. “Nobody can do this but me. It’s my fight.”
> 
> “You want to keep losing, then?”  Kent wheels, turning his back on Jack. “Fine, go ahead, keep losing. Better for me anyway.”
> 
> Jack’s heart sinks into his shoes. “Fuck you,” he whispers.
> 
> “No, fuck you, Zimms,” Kent says, moving to the window and glaring at Jack through the reflection in the pane. “You are so damn determined to destroy yourself one way or another, and I’m standing here trying to help you.”
> 
> “You don’t want to help me.” Jack’s still in shock. “You want me to go the coaches so I can get kicked out of the league so you can take my slot.”
> 
> “I didn’t fucking say that!” Kent whirls. “But facts is facts, Zimms. You keep destroying yourself, the slot’s gonna go to me. Do you even care if you’re competition anymore?”
> 
> “Fuck you. Fuck you. This is over.” Jack moves to his side of the room, the bed he hasn’t slept in. He grabs his overnight bag and his gear.
> 
> “Like hell it is.  What are you gonna do? Demand they give you a new room? Go sleep in the fucking park for the rest of the trip?”
> 
> “If I have to.”
> 
> “Jack.” Kent goes from angry to pleading in a moment. “Don’t go. Come on. You’re my partner. I need you.”
> 
> “Maybe that’s the problem,” Jack says, and heads for the door.
> 
> As he goes, Kent switches gears again -- back to rage. “I am the only one around here who understands you, Jack. I am the only one who cares about you no matter what. You think anyone else would give a shit about you if they knew?”
> 
> Jack manages to not look back. He manages to take the elevator down to the lobby. And then he’s bolting for the  men’s room to retch.
> 
> What in the hell happens now? Where does he go?

* * *

“I went back and lived at home for a while. My parents made sure I had my own room when we went on roadies. They told me to be professional around Kent. Polite. They thought-- they thought it was all his fault. They had me believing it, too. But they didn’t know everything.”

“Dad tried to do damage control. He told the press there was an illness in the family that was causing some strain. He didn’t know how right he was.”

“And then the draft happened.”

Jack stops, takes a breath. He can’t look at the screen. He’s been hunched forward, staring at his lap, eyes half-closed as he’s told the story. But Bitty hasn’t said anything, and that’s been for the best. It’s hard enough to get it all out without fielding questions or comments.

“Anyway,” he says. “I’d been sober and clean for two weeks. And I thought to myself-- I started to believe again. I was doing so well. Maybe the story would end the way it was supposed to after all.

“But. I guess you know it didn’t. So I left.

“I left. And I found a bar where nobody knew me, and I drank myself into a stupor. Because what was the point, if I’d already lost?”

* * *

> He drinks until they won’t serve him anymore. On the TV screens above the bar, Kent Parson is looking out at the crowds, smiling with a brand-new Aces jersey thrown on over his suit. _Zimmermann unexpectedly leaves draft,_ blares the chiron at the bottom of the screen.
> 
> In his mind, Kent’s gaze is full of malice. _You fell for it,_ that look seems to say. _You fell for everything. It was all so I could end up here. It’s all been a game._
> 
> He stumbles into the men’s room. The shakes are as bad as he’s ever had them, and he’s not sure his legs won’t crumple beneath him. He’s hot -- his jacket is bulky as hell. As he pulls it off, he hears the telltale chink of something in his pocket. Oh, God. His pills. He’s still carrying his pills.
> 
> He pulls them out, stares at them, and something dim in his head shouts a warning.
> 
> But Kent Parson is still there, too. Telling him it’s all been a game. And Jack misses the cool touch of drug-induced calm. He slides down the tiled wall to the floor and puts a pill in his mouth.
> 
> _Everything I ever did, Zimms. From the start. It was all about this moment._
> 
> Another pill. The shakes aren’t subsiding, but the world is getting glassy and odd. Another two pills.
> 
> _It was a game and you lose._
> 
> Three more. Five. And the tile feels wonderful against his cheek, like ice. Maybe one more.
> 
> _It was a game._
> 
> The world is pleasantly dark. He’s no longer shaking. He’s no longer anything.
> 
> _A game, and I win, Jack. I win._

* * *

“Okay,” Bitty whispers. “Okay, Jack, that’s enough. Please stop. I-- I can’t. I can’t hear anymore. Not tonight.”

Jack looks up. Bitty’s cheeks are streaked with red, and tears are wobbling on his skin. As Jack watches, he reaches up, draws the back of his hand across his face, and sniffles.

“Bits,” he says, feeling like all his senses have been dulled. “I-- I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“No.” Bitty sniffles again and shakes his head. “I want to know. I wanted to know, but God, Jack. I never realized--”

He covers his eyes with his hand and shakes.

Jack is drawn back completely into the present. This man is crying over him. This man cares enough about him to shed tears. Tears over a past that’s been so long buried and banished, tears even though Jack’s as responsible for his mistakes as anyone. Jack doesn’t deserve to be blessed by those tears, and yet here he is, witness to them. It’s the oddest rush of joy in the midst of pain, and Jack’s not sure what to do with it.

“There’s a little more to the story,” he says. “Just a little. I’ll tell you tomorrow night?”

Bitty nods. “I hope it gets better.”

“It does,” Jack tells him, and lifts a hand to the screen, futilely wiping away pixelated tears. “It gets so much better.”


	28. Chapter 28

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wednesday, June 24, and Thursday, June 25, 2015.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the last of the Parse-related chapters. This chapter is maybe not so hard on Parse himself, but it features Bitty being very hard on Parse in his mind, So again, if that bothers you, or if favorability to Parse’s character is something you need from your fanfic narratives, I encourage you to skip this chapter altogether. We’ll be back in two days with something completely different!
> 
> Only four chapters left after this one -- I can hardly believe it! I can’t thank you all enough for your kind, encouraging comments!

**Yesterday**

Bitty didn’t sleep very well last night.

It didn’t much matter that Jack had promised him things got better in his story. It doesn’t undo what Bitty’s heard this far. And what he’s heard just makes him sad and angry almost beyond his capacity to feel.

To think of Jack, young Jack, hurting so badly and feeling so lost, breaks his heart. Jack needed to be lifted up in that time. He needed someone to see him and help him and let him know that he was good and worthy no matter what happened at the draft. It tortures Bitty that he can’t reach back in time and pull that young Jack to him and whisper that everything is going to be all right. It burns like acid in his heart.

And it burns that the one person who could have lifted Jack up during that time just dragged him down instead.

He loves that Jack tried to assume some responsibility for what happens. He loves that about Jack, his sense of ownership of what happens under his watch. It’s what made him a great captain. But he gets the feeling that Jack is probably trying to be fair to someone who doesn’t deserve it. Bitty’s pretty sure at this point that Kent Parson doesn’t deserve _squat._

Kent, Jack calls him, with almost a remembered tenderness in his voice. Kent, someone that Jack cared for. Still cares for. 

Well, Bitty doesn’t have to care about him. Not one bit. 

Not Kent -- no, Parson, he doesn’t deserve familiarity from Bitty -- not Parson, who encouraged the worst and the most irresponsible in Jack. Who urged Jack to give up control when he needed someone to help him take it. Parson, who did everything in his power to make Jack’s life a mess, then flung it in Jack’s face.

Parson, who four or five years later came back to the Haus looking for something Jack didn’t want to give, and who made Jack shake like a twig in a rainstorm, then slam his door.

If Parson still has that effect on Jack, Bitty doesn’t have any interest in giving him the benefit of the doubt. Not one single shred of sympathy for that boy. Bitty’s nice, but he can hold a grudge with the best of them, and this seems like a grudge well worth holding.

He has a hard day at camp. The clouds burst just after lunch, when everyone’s just getting ready to play a blistering soccer match, and everyone has to run for the Big Building to get indoors. They gather inside the gym, split off into age groups, and play dumb games like Indian Chief that nobody really likes to play. Kids who are scared of thunder break into shrieking sobs. Bitty has to go to the side of the gym with Clara and Lori to calm them both down. He looks back at his campers and sees Teddy has taken to terrorizing the rest of the kids again. It’s a slow nightmare, and at the end of the day everyone has to run for the buses despite the torrents. The bus smells like mildew and rainwater the whole ride home. Bitty stumbles into the house and has to strip down to his boxers right there to keep from dripping on the tile. He runs the hottest shower he can stand and thinks that when it rains, it really does pour.

“Jack,” he mumbles that night when they start their call, “can we talk about some nice things tonight? I know you’re not done telling your story and all, but--”

“Sure. Sure, Bittle. Whatever you want.”  Jack looks a little relieved, too. Bitty wonders if it rained in Rhode Island, too. Or maybe Jack needs a break from the story just as much as Bitty does. It _has_ taken him several days to tell. 

“So.” The universe of nice things to talk about seems awfully sparse right now. “Um. You’re going to Shitty’s on Friday night?”

“Yeah. I’ll be there ‘til Sunday.” Jack gives a rueful smile. “I don’t expect to get a lot of privacy. I don’t know if we can keep our Skype dates.”

“Well, why don’t you Skype me with him there? I’ll get a chance to see you both.”

Jack pouts a bit. “It’s not the same.“

“Well, I know _that_ , but at least it’s something? I know we’ll probably have to be careful not to slip up. Gosh, it’s a shame we can’t tell Shitty.” 

“Just for now. Maybe we can revisit that someday.”

Bitty nods. “I hope so. If we’re going to tell _anyone_ , he seems like the one we’d want to start with. Lord knows we can’t count on the rest of the boys being quiet.” Bitty’s eyes fall on the calendar behind Jack on the screen. “Oh, oh, Jack, is that your cheat day you have marked there? Is that this Saturday?”

Jack turns back for a second. “Oh. Yeah. That. Well…”

“I am so, _so_ sorry! I should have made something and sent it up to you already! You could have taken it up to Boston for you and Shitty to share. Oh, I _hate_ the idea that you’re not going to have something of mine to eat. I mean, I could still _make_ something now and ask Mama to ship it up to you, but that might raise some questions. And it’s just such a hard thing to come straight home from camp and head out into town to send things before the post office closes. But camp’s not done until three, and it’s--”

“Bittle. Bittle.” Jack laughs. “It’s okay. I was thinking about switching anyway.”

Bitty’s abruptly lost. “I’m sorry? Switching?”

“Until the next week. So I can eat whatever you make while I’m there.”

“There-- where-- _oh_.” Bitty stares at him, then the calendar, again. He can feel how wide his eyes have gotten, but he can’t do a darned thing  about it. “Is it already-- is it next week? You’re coming next _week_?”

“Well. A week from Saturday. So a little over a week, but yeah.”

Bitty’s heart goes flying out the window and does several loop-the-loops before making its way back to his chest. “A week,” he repeats. “You’re going to be here in a week.”

“A little over a week,” Jack corrects again.

“A little over a week,” Bitty parrots. “A week, oh, no, Jack, I’m so excited!”

And despite the rain and the lingering bad mood, Bitty finds himself suddenly eager to tell Jack every single plan for the Fourth of July weekend. What do you know. There are some nice things to talk about, after all.

* * *

**Today**

Camp is a little better today. There’s huge mud puddles all over the fields because of the rain yesterday, so Bitty has his hands full trying to keep the kids from jumping into them and ruining their good clothes. An unseasonable chill hangs in the air in early morning, but by 10 a.m. the dew has dried out on the grass and things are heating up for that late-June bake that usually hangs in the air on camp days. Bitty has goosebumps on his arms in the morning and a bit of a burn by early afternoon. He grumbles and slathers more suntan lotion on, but really, there’s nothing to be done. Georgia sun will get you one way or another.

He feels stronger today, with the memory of a pleasant conversation in the back of his mind and the fresh reminder that Jack’s only a week and a half from being in the very same state as him again. There’s actually a part of him that’s eager to get the story finished up tonight. He wants to push through to those happier times Jack’s promised him, to have those fresh in his mind when Jack arrives.

And he’s been thinking, that maybe, if Jack was brave enough to tell him all this… maybe he can be brave too.

He fairly glows at Jack when he picks up the call. Jack looks a little more rested, too, and his eyes are bright. “Feeling better, Bittle?”

“Yeah.” Bitty nods and curls one hand into a fist. “I’m ready to hear the rest, I think. If you’re ready to tell it.”

Jack shrugs. “There’s not that much left to tell. I woke up in the hospital, and I did maybe two or three weeks of intensive rehab. Not in a facility, but in-home. My parents brought in doctors. It wasn’t that hard to actually get off the drugs. It was harder to deal with my situation. I had to rethink my life. Figure out how to go on, now that things hadn’t happened the way I’d planned. I did a lot of thinking and a lot of … just sitting there wondering what was going to happen to me. What I had left.

“My parents saw everything as Kent’s fault. They wanted someone to blame, and it was easy for them, at first, to name him as the villain. Later, after a lot of therapy, I think it became clearer to them, and to me, that things weren’t that simple. But in the beginning, it was comforting to hear them say it. They were all for keeping him out of my life, and I… I didn’t want to see him either. I didn’t want to be reminded of how close I came and what I didn’t accomplish.

“When I got to school, he tried to get in touch a couple of times. He’d send me emails. I deleted them. Legitimate mail, too -- to me, care of Samwell Men’s Hockey. The coaches would pass the letters on to me. I threw a bunch of them out without opening. I was finally playing hockey again, and things were looking like they might-- that I might be back on track. The last thing I needed was him coming back to take that away again.

“But.” Jack sighs. “You can’t run away forever. The spring of my freshman year, the Aces won the cup. And the minute we were back in preseason, Kent flew up and came to the Haus to see me.”

“Oh, yes, Shitty told me--” Bitty starts, and then presses his hands to his mouth. He’d told Shitty he’d keep that conversation confidential.

But Jack doesn’t seem surprised or perturbed. “I was angry,” he says. “I told Kent to get out. I was about ready to throw him out myself. But everybody was starstruck, and nobody on the hockey team was going to back me if I wanted to throw Kent Parson of all people out of their home. Shitty and Bergey had to hold me back. I remember Johnson telling me I couldn’t fight the antagonist while I was still in the middle of backstory. Whatever that meant.”

Bitty has to smile at that. Sounds like Johnson was his weird self back in the day, too.

“Kent… Kent managed to get me alone then, too. And I’ll never forget. He said to me, ‘ _Zimms, I miss you. I didn’t know how fucked up I was until I lost you._ He said, _I’ve learned. I’ve learned from this. Can we at least be friends again?_ ’” 

_No,_ Bitty thinks. _No, you don’t get that. Not after what you did._ “What did you tell him?”

“I said I wasn’t ready yet,” Jack said. “I said, maybe someday. But not right now. And I asked him, one more time, to leave.

“He said he’d go, but only if I promised I’d read the email he sent me the next day. So I did, I promised, and he-- he tried to -- well. He left after that.”

Bitty doesn’t want to ask what that fragment of a thought was about. “What did the email say?”

Jack sighs and re-settles himself in his chair. “Some of it was-- things you don’t want to hear,” he says, his voice just above a murmur. “About us. But mostly, it was apologies. Detailed ones. He talked about  specific things he’d said and done, and how he knew they were wrong. It was a good letter. He really had thought things through. And at the end of it, he said --” He clears his throat. “ _You taught me how to care about someone. I screwed it up, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t care. I’m always going to care. So whenever you’re ready, I’ll be here. I miss you.”_

Bitty takes in a tight breath. The words, spoken on Jack’s tongue, just make him angrier. Whatever kind of Beauty and the Beast crap Kent was trying to pull, maybe Jack can’t see through it, but Bitty sure can. And how incredibly presumptuous of Kent to assume that Jack will just come around someday. Some people just need to be told to go away. Bitty’s not so cruel as to wish Kent Parson never finds happiness. But he’s not entitled to that happiness with Jack. He can go find it somewhere else.

“Me and Kent,” Jack says, “we were over, I knew that. Even then, I knew it. But… to be honest, there was a piece of me that -- that didn’t really accept it. There was a part of me that wished for everything to magically get better. To go back to the good old days. I thought, maybe I could have hockey again and Kent again and everything would work out this time. When Kent came back this year -- when you were there-- part of me thought, maybe…”

Bitty’s stomach twists into a knot. “Jack, no,” he breathes, without meaning to, without being able to stop it.

“Yeah,” Jack says. “I know. I don’t know how much you heard, but-- there was a moment.” He hangs his head. “There was a moment. But then I thought of everything I had, about the team and about you, and I thought-- do I want that, or do I want this? 

"The answer-- the answer surprised me. But it also made sense.

“So I told him no again. And this time he didn’t take it so well. You probably heard that part.” He glances at Bitty, who gives him a quick nod. Oh, yes. He remembers too well.

“There’s something about the way he talks to me, Bits.” Jack meets his eyes again, just for a second. “It makes me hurt. It puts me right back where I was, all those years ago. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to handle it. I’m... “ He shakes his head. “I don’t know what it’s going to be like, when we’re on the same ice again. I’m nervous about it.”

“Honey. Sweetheart. _Jack._ ” Bitty can’t touch him, can’t put a hand on his shoulder to help him through his shaky breaths. All he can do is say Jack’s name, every permutation of it, and hope it brings Jack forward in time to where they are right now.  “Can I tell you something? I am so, so proud of you right now. Look at how far you’ve come. Look at how much you’ve grown. I know, it sounds funny, coming from me, and I know I wasn’t there, but-- honey, you’re _not_  back there anymore. You’re here. With me. With a brand spanking new contract with the Falconers and a college degree, for goodness’ sake, and friends who love you and a whole future. Even if-- even if you do end up face to face with him again, you’re not that boy anymore. You’re gonna be _fine._ ”

Jack stares at him with dark, shining eyes. “Thank you,” he says. “It seems so easy when you say it, but I don’t know. Can I be strong enough?”

“You already have,” Bitty tells him. “You did it twice. Twice he came to you and twice you told him to go. You can do it again. And even if something happens-- Lord, Jack, even if you have another _moment_ \--”

“I won’t,” Jack hurries to say. “I won’t. That won’t happen anymore.”

“But if it does.” Bitty doesn’t know where all these words are coming from. He’s incandescently angry, he hates Kent Parson, but Jack. Oh, Lord, he _loves_ Jack. “If it does, you’ll come and tell me, and we’ll talk about it and we’ll work it out. You just need to be honest with me, okay? Just like you just were. Be honest with me and we’ll work it out. Can you promise me that much?”

“I-- yes.” Jack’s shoulders slump. “Yes, I promise.”

“I promise too,” Bitty says. “We’ll always tell each other the truth, okay? We’re going to need that, Jack. If we’re going to do this -- and we already know we’re going to have to do some lying, heck, I already have -- we have to talk to each other.”

“I. Um.” Jack lets out a soft breath, then looks right at him, the color restored to his eyes, but the sparkle still there. “I want this to work. You and me. I don’t want it to be like it was with Kent. I want this to be good for both of us.”

“Oh, honey.” Bitty says. “It already is. So good.”

* * *

Since they don’t know if they’ll get a chance to Skype again until Sunday night -- at least, not without Shitty tagging along  -- they agree to try to text as much as possible to stay connected. Bitty’s grateful there’s such a thing as texting, as it might be all he has for a few days. And he’s grateful that Jack was able to wrap up his story before taking off for the weekend.

Oh, but how badly he wishes he could lie there with Jack tonight, take care of him, hold him and tell him everything will be all right! 

Bitty puts both arms around one of his pillows that night, like a teenager dreaming of a first kiss. He settles himself on the pretend Jack’s shoulder and imagines Jack’s warmth wrapping around him. They need this so much. They need to have a chance to cuddle close together and feel completely in the moment. They need to let all the ghosts of the past be dispelled by the warmth of their shared body heat. Bitty aches with how much he needs it, and he knows, just _knows_ deep in the core of him that Jack needs it too. 

Just a little more than a week, he tells himself. Just a week.

Just a week, and then they can kiss away the past, and their future together can really begin.


	29. Chapter 29

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Friday, June 26, and Saturday, June 27, 2015.

**Yesterday**

Bitty’s phone starts blowing up a little past 10. It’s a few minutes into the first elective period, and Bitty’s supervising the few of his kids who elected to take archery. Which means a lot of running back and forth and retrieving arrows from the very-far-away-from-the-target places they tend to fall when eight-year-olds are shooting them. Between that and not wanting to miss a single minute of the last day of the session (both Hayden and Isabella will not be returning next week), Bitty’s not terribly interested in whatever the Samwell Men’s Hockey Team is babbling about right now.

Most likely it has to do with the draft, which starts today. Bitty doesn’t follow it the way some of the other guys do (read: Jack and Chowder, mostly), so he doesn’t much care.

The buzzing in his shorts pocket is so constant, however, that Bitty’s starting to get a tingle in his hip. Around lunchtime, he finally gets a chance to ease it out of his pocket and take a peek.

Okay, that’s weird. Everyone is texting him separately. And there’s about three missed calls.

He opens a few select texts.

> **Chowder**
> 
> OH MY GOD BITTY DID YOU HEAR. IT’S SO EXCITING1!!!!?
> 
> **Ransom**
> 
> Yo Bits, celebrating yet? Thinkin about you man.
> 
> **Jack**
> 
> Looks like it’s going to be an interesting weekend in Cambridge. Call me when you get a chance.

Bitty frowns at his phone. He casts a glance at the other counselors (who are all sitting around talking _very intensely_ ) and then takes the plunge and scrolls up through the SMH group text.

A few minutes later, his hands shaking, he desperately browses to CNN.com. He reads the headline. And fat, silent tears start rolling down his cheeks.

“Mr. Bittle, are you okay?”

Bitty looks down. Amanda’s tugging at his shirt, looking up at him with big blue-lavender eyes.

“Oh, honey,” he says, “I just got something in my eye, that’s all. Let me hurry off to the men’s room and see if I can get it out.”

He flies to the bathroom, rushes into a stall, grabs a bit of toilet paper and dabs away the tears. Oh, Lord. Oh. _Lord._

He dials Jack, but there’s no answer. He thinks about calling home, but this is one moment he can’t share with his mother. He tries Shitty next, and the phone is picked up before the first ring is over.

“BITS YOU MOTHERFUCKER, WHEN’S THE WEDDING? WE’RE ALL COMING.”

Bitty lowers the volume on his phone just in case any campers can hear Shitty’s X-rated language through the stall doors. “I just found out,” he says, and he’s stunned at how shaky his voice is. “Oh, my _God_ , I’m just beside myself. I don’t know what to do. I’m sitting here in a bathroom stall at camp because I can’t stop crying and I can’t tell anybody here how happy I am. Is it true, what they say on the news? It’s legal in the whole country now? Even-- even here?”

“It is indeed,” Shitty confirms, and Bitty has to fight down a fresh flood of tears. “5-4 decision. Kennedy writes the opinion, of course. Gotta say, I’m disappointed in Roberts. I thought for sure he’d join the majority, but I suppose after the Obamacare decision he has to appease the conservative fucktrumpets somehow. But Kennedy’s decision is sweet, man. They’re going to be reading passages from that shit at gay weddings from here to Honolulu. Wait ‘til you read it, Bits.”

Bitty doesn’t follow any of this, but he gets the important part from Shitty’s tone of voice: Shitty is _jubilant_. Which is the surest sign yet that all of this is real.

He lets the tears fall now, making soft mm-hm sounds as Shitty talks his ear off about precedent and fundamental rights, and thanking whatever good Lord is up in heaven. He can get married. Anywhere in this country, he can get married. A soft-focus picture appears in his head -- someday, on the steps of that rustic church at the edge of town -- his parents smiling and approving, because this is _his_ fantasy -- friends surrounding him -- and his hands folded in the hands of a handsome man who looks at him like he’s the sun.

A man who may very possibly look something like Jack Zimmermann.

A shudder of pleasure wracks Bitty’s body, as real and tangible as if he’s been touched, and he gives a soft hum. Oh, he’s never let himself dream that before. But what a dream. And what a dream that could, someday, in some universe, come true.

Shitty lets him go with promises that he’s going to drag Jack to “the inevitable party that’s going to consume Harvard Square like fucking Godzilla, I promise you that, Bits.” If there’s a cloud to this silver lining, Bitty figures, that’s it. Their chance of Skyping was already minimal; this brings it to zero.

They do exchange a few texts, as promised. Jack’s … Jack, which means his texts are around the enthusiasm level of:

> **Jack**
> 
> Pretty exciting eh.

Bitty’s got a little more emotion to let out, so he starts by typing:

> _Can you believe it? We can get married!_

Then he stares at the text (still unsent) and adds

> _(Well, not to each other)_

and then adds

> _(Well, not necessarily)_

and then adds

> _(The point is I can get married and you.. could get married, I mean, if you wanted to marry a_

and then he deletes the whole text without sending it because he’s not a complete idiot.

It’s a struggle to get through the rest of the day. Bitty keeps thinking about what must be going on all over the country right now and just wants to sob. So he keeps his focus on his kids, squeezes them tight at the end of the day when it’s time to say goodbye, and manages to get home without breaking down again.

Bitty’s not a political animal. He doesn’t follow the goings-on of Congress, or elections, or any of that other stuff that folks like Shitty and Nursey track obsessively. But this -- God, _this_ feels bigger. People’s lives are going to change because of this. People _just like him_. Bitty thinks back to junior high, to his first crushes and the shattering realization that he was gay. Maybe, just maybe, for one of those kids he said goodbye to today, that same realization won’t feel nearly so crushing. Maybe they’ll be able to say _oh, okay, I guess this is who I am_ , and go about their lives.

Maybe things can still change for him, too.

“So,” he says carefully at dinner, “big news today, wasn’t it?” He keeps a sharp eye on his parents, wary for any sign they may have a suspicion. A shared glance, a hesitation, anything. But there isn’t, and he’s a little disheartened by it.

“I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later,” Coach says.

“Heaven knows we won’t hear the end of it in church for a few weeks,” his mother says, spearing her green beans on the end of her fork.

Maybe it’s the boldness of the moment, but Bitty pushes a little further. “Do you agree, though?”

Mama chews thoughtfully for a moment. “The way I see it, it isn’t up to me to agree or disagree. I’m only dreading the sermons. I wish we could all spend a little less time on current events and more time on things like feeding the hungry.”

“Feeding the entire congregation, you mean,” Coach says with a nod toward the kitchen. Mama’s been on her own baking tear today, apparently.

“What about you?” Bitty turns to Coach.

“It was bound to happen,” he repeats, and shrugs. Bitty decides not to extend the conversation.

After dinner, the minutes tick away with no Skype call, as expected. Bitty considers doing a vlog on the subject, but he can’t think of the right words to say. He considers tweeting about it, but he hasn’t touched his Twitter since graduation and he’s not ready to let go of the beautiful words _This boy._ sitting at the top of his timeline. Even looking at them now, his fingers go to his lips and he remembers. What a wonderful moment in history, to remember on a day like today.

At 10:30, as Bitty’s under the covers and lost in a book, his tablet lights up. Bitty hurries to the desk and sees it’s a Skype, but from Shitty’s number. He picks up to see Jack and Shitty, pressed cheek to cheek, in what looks like a crowd. It sounds like one, too.

“Bits, I wanted you to be the first to know,” Shitty shouts over the din. “In honor of today, I’ve asked this beautiful motherfucker to marry me.”

Jack gets an alarmed look on his face. He shakes his head minutely. Bitty giggles.

“You can be the best man, of course,” Shitty goes on. “But you’re making the fucking wedding cake. We’re going to make you slave over a hot oven in celebration of our manly love.”

“Wait a minute,” Bitty chides. “I thought I was the one getting married. Y’all are stealing my thunder.”

“Oh, right, right. Well, we’ll marry you off next, then. What do you think, Jack? Are you gonna walk Bits down the aisle and give him away?”

“No.” Jack looks horrified at the very thought.

“Don’t be that way, man. Come on, congratulate Bitty on his newfound first-class citizenship.”

“Shh,” Bitty cautions, and turns down the volume on his tablet.

“Um. Congratulations.” Jack has the most amusing look on his face, somewhere between perturbed and panicky.  Bitty wants to dissolve in giggles just looking at it.

“So what’s going on there?” he says. “It looks crazy.”

“Dance party, man. All over the Square. There’s fucking glow sticks and kissing men everywhere, it’s insane.”

“There are women, too,” Jack apparently feels the need to point out.

“Fuck yes. Every fucking permutation of the gender and sexuality spectrum. It’s like Tumblr burst out of the internet and came to life. It’s beautiful, Bitty. If you were here, you’d be up on top of the news kiosk working it.”

“Well, that all depends.” Bitty inclines his ear to try to pick up some of the background noise. “What are they playing?”

“I think this is Taylor Swi--” Jack starts, and Shitty glares at him almost as hard as Bitty himself does. Jack looks at Shitty, looks at the screen, puts his hands up, and shuts his mouth.

The screen keeps shaking as Shitty gets jostled by the crowd. At one point someone puts a rainbow sticker on Jack’s cheek. He peels it off, looks at it, then puts it on his baseball cap. Bitty is so amused he has to stuff his fist in his face to keep from cackling.

“Jack keeps getting hit on by drunk guys,” Shitty says. “It’s fuckin sweet, brah. But then I make sure to cuddle him good, so they think he’s spoken for.”

 _He is,_ Bitty thinks. For an instant he’s a little resentful that he can’t be out there, or at least get a few moments alone with Jack. But this is fun, too, and Bitty can’t stay mad at anything for long, not tonight. “You two go off and party. Thanks for thinking of me!”

“Bittle.” Jack leans forward into the phone. “I’m going to try to call tomorrow night, if I get a chance.”

“Forget it,” Shitty says. “You’re mine-all-mine until Sunday. What the hell do you have to talk to Bits for anyway?”

“He’s helping me with my kitchen,” Jack says. Bitty doesn’t know whether to marvel or cringe at the smoothness of the lie. It occurs to him as he hangs up that, even if thousands of lives are changed by today’s decision, his own isn’t one of them.

 

* * *

 

**Today**

Saturday, and Bitty spends part of it at camp in the arts and crafts room, making welcome packages for his new campers. There’s one named Louis and one named Natalia, and he can’t wait to meet them. He sends Jack pictures of their cubbies, all pleasantly decorated and ready to hold their bag lunches and spare clothes while they go about their days.

Jack doesn’t text as much as Bitty was hoping he would. Shitty is keeping him pretty busy, if the pictures he keeps sending group chat are any indication. One is Jack in front of a giant milk bottle. One is him hunched forward in what looks like a Tokyo subway. In another, he’s sitting cross-legged on the floor behind the lens of a giant pair of sunglasses. Shitty eventually texts that he’s dragged Jack to Boston’s Children’s Museum, but for a while, the contextless photos have everybody guessing.

Maybe it’s just the leftover adrenaline from yesterday, but Bitty’s restless all day long. He keeps refreshing his messages, then staring at them balefully not really knowing what to respond to. He tidies his room, then takes the dishes out of the dishwasher and handwashes every last one of them. At twilight, he takes a walk. He walks up to Peter’s house, because it’s been a while, and when Peter comes out they sit on the front steps and talk for a while.

Peter mentions that his family is going away for the Fourth of July weekend. “You should drive up and park in our field and watch the fireworks,” he says. “It’s a good view.” He gestures to the side of the house. Beyond the fenced-in yard, a grassy field goes on forever, broken by a single tree.

“All that’s yours?” Bitty asks.

Peter nods. “I think so. Nobody’s ever there, so maybe it doesn’t belong to anybody. But I think it belongs to us. Mom says Dad meant to plant trees on it, a long time ago, but it never happened. I like it better just grass. You can see forever.”

Bitty nods, and peers across the field. Lord, he might be able to see the fireworks from Buckhead -- that’s how clear the view is. Maybe he can convince Coach to let him and Jack drive up here after the picnic.   ****

Bitty goes inside with Peter and stands around respectfully for a ceremony he’s never seen before --- to end the Sabbath and start the week. There’s a box full of spices to smell and a braided candle that gets doused in a cup of wine, and lots of prayers in Hebrew that Bitty doesn’t understand. But the melodies are haunting, and they echo in Bitty’s ears as he wishes Peter and his family a happy week and heads home.

He hopes he’ll get a chance to tell Jack about it. To hear about the Children’s Museum, and whatever else Shitty made Jack endure today. To see Jack’s face, if just for a second, and hear the low comfortable rumble of his voice. But as the night wears on, it becomes obvious that this time, Jack just didn’t get the chance he was looking for. Feeling a little grumbly, full of energy he didn’t get the chance to fully expend,  Bitty gets ready for bed. After twenty or so minutes of lying in bed hoping against hope for a call, he gives in and lets himself fall asleep.

His phone shakes him awake at 2 a.m.

He grabs for it in the dark, registers that it’s a Skype call and not a phone call, and presses the button. He can’t see anything on the screen, just a dim hazy blur.

“Bits?” Whispered.

“Jack?” Bitty puts the phone to his ear, because having it in front of his face is doing him absolutely no good. “Is that you? I can’t see anything.”

“Yeah, I know. Sorry. Did I wake you up?”

“Well. Yes, but that’s okay. What’s wrong?”

“What? Nothing’s wrong. Sorry, maybe I shouldn’t have called.”

“No, no, honey, of course it’s okay. Is it dark there?”

“Yeah. I’m in the guest room.”

Bitty puts the phone at arm’s length again, tries to puzzle out the fuzzy texture he’s seeing, then returns it to his ear.  “Well, I can’t see a dang thing. Why didn’t you just call?”

“Um.” Jack says, and pauses. “I wanted to have our date.”

"Our what now?”

“Our Skype date.”

Bitty may be half-asleep, but his heart wakes right up and does a funny shudder in his chest. “Jack,” he starts, but he can’t think of any words to follow it.

“I know,” Jack says. There’s a rueful tinge in his voice. “I’ll let you go back to sleep. But it felt strange to not say good night to you.”

Bitty catches his breath. He doesn’t know what to do with a moment like this, a 2 a.m. phone call from his boyfriend who just wanted to say good night. He’s never been treated with that kind of tenderness before. He’s never had someone willing to stay up late and make data-plan-draining Skype calls in dark rooms for him. And Lord knows he’s never considered his own existence worth that much.

What is he supposed to do? Besides lie here and be aware of how hopelessly, utterly in love he is?

The silent seconds drag on mercilessly. Eventually he forces some small talk. “D-- did you have a good time with Shitty today?”

“It was fun,” Jack says. “I’ll tell you about it tomorrow night.”

“Um. Okay.” Bitty trembles on the edge of words for a second, and then, because it’s late and he’s half asleep and there’s a ball of warmth in his chest, they just come tumbling out. “I’m really happy you called, honey. I missed our date, too. I missed your voice.”

“I missed you.” Jack says it as Bitty’s thinking it, and that curl of warmth plunges down into Bitty’s stomach. “We’ll talk tomorrow night, okay?”

“Yeah. Okay. Sure, Jack.” It’s late and Bitty’s sleepy and warm all over. “Hey, Jack?”

“Hm?”

“I--” _I love you,_ he almost says. The feeling is alive inside him, deliciously incandescent. But no, not yet. Not now, in the dark. He wants to see Jack’s face. He wants to be there. “Good night.”

“Good night, Bits.”

The phone goes dead. Bitty’s left in silence and darkness again.

He clutches that warmth inside him like a blanket, and listens to it whisper its name over and over as he falls back asleep.


	30. Chapter 30

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sunday, June 28, and Monday, June 29, 2015.

**Yesterday**

Sunday. Church day. The sermon stays mercifully empty of any anti-gay polemics, aside from a passive-aggressive mention of lawmakers swayed by public opinion instead of morality. The after-church socializing is a little more fraught. Maybe Bitty’s paranoid, but he gets the feeling that whenever someone brings up That Awful Decision, he gets a bunch of glances, as though they’re testing to see whether his liberal Northeastern college has gotten to him or not. He smiles and nods and says “Hm” a lot. It’s only through the grace of God that nobody asks him directly what he thinks. Because Bitty’s not sure he wouldn’t open his fool mouth and say something he’d end up regretting.

 _Not worth it,_ he tells himself. _Not going to ruin Mama’s thirty-year friendships because I can’t keep my mouth closed._

But, conversely, hearing all the disapproving murmurs just reminds him that _it happened_ , and Bitty feels a perverse urge to be as gay as humanly possible today. He shakes his booty to Beyonce for like an hour in the afternoon. He chats with Mama about redoing the kitchen curtains over Sunday dinner. And oh yeah, he’s all revved up to have an evening talk with Jack, the two of them alone at last.

He calls at 8:28, unable to wait the extra two minutes (Jack is nothing if not punctual). It rings for a second, which surprises Bitty, because, again, punctual.

But then. Oh. Oh, dear.

Jack is _horizontal._ He’s lying on his bed, one elbow crooked under his head, and smiling -- a smile that’s all smoke and warmth. And he’s wearing a button-down shirt that is completely open. One side drapes over him like a sheet, the other lies in a pool beneath him, leaving his chest half-exposed. Bitty is instantly, irrevocably aroused. Jack’s pose-- his whole being-- is radiating desire, and even with the screen and the states between them, Bitty can feel the heat of it. If they were in the same room, Bitty wouldn’t be able to resist the call of all that touchable, warm skin. He’d be closing the distance between them, pushing himself down on top of Jack and -- oh. Oh, _yes._

“Hey,” Jack says, a slow soft drawl. Bitty’s skin prickles.

“I. Um. Hi. You look comfortable,” he stutters.

Jack’s response is just an “Mm-hm.” He seems content to just lie there and look sexy as hell.

Which is fine, but… conversation, conversation! “Do you, I mean, uh, how was your weekend? The pictures looked fun. What else did you and Shitty do?”

“Let’s talk about that later,” Jack says. Bitty swallows hard.

“Um. Okay. I…”

“I missed you. I missed being able to talk to you.”

God, this is so Jack - so honest and unrestrained. He’s not _trying_ to be sexy, not putting on a show for Bitty’s benefit. He’s simply himself, wanting Bitty and being completely honest and direct about it, because he can’t not be. And that makes him _devastatingly_ sexy. Bitty whimpers.

Jack is wordless for a moment. He’s staring -- staring so hard he might as well burn a hole in Bitty -- but he’s not saying anything. Bitty gets nervous. “Say something.”

“I like looking at you,” Jack says.

“Oh, God.” Bitty’s going to burn up.

“I like being alone with you.”

Burn up and turn to a puff of dust. He’s done for. “Yeah. Jack. Um. yeah.”

“By this time next week i’ll already be flying home.” Jack frowns. “Monday’s skate is optional. Maybe I should change my flight.”

Something liquefies in Bitty’s brain, and it comes out as words. “Oh, Jack, I don’t want to put you out, and I know you’re working hard to make your best start with the team and I wouldn’t want to get in the way of that and changing tickets this late is going to be expensive and--”

“Yeah.” Jack’s voice -- his low, rumbling, deep, wonderful voice -- stops Bitty’s torrent. “Maybe I’ll change my flight. I can stay another night, right?”

Bitty’s heart plunges to his stomach. Jack could be under his roof for two whole nights. Under his roof, staying in the guest room just across the hall, and Bitty would be languishing there in his own room as the house plunges into darkness after the lights go out and -- maybe, after everything’s quiet and dark, maybe Bitty could sneak across and --

“I-- I’m sure that’d be fine,” he manages.

Jack smiles, but says nothing He’s just lying there, looking at Bitty. No -- not just lying there -- he’s moving, his _hand_ is moving. His hand is sliding underneath his shirt, pushing the fabric away. Then moving -- a soft glide -- against his skin. Bitty bites back a moan. How is the sight of Jack’s hand against Jack’s skin so pornographic?

And then Jack brushes his fingers against one nipple. And he closes his eyes, just for a moment, and exhales.

An “Ohmy _goodness_ ” falls from Bitty’s lips.

Jack blinks one eye open, and he smiles. Okay. Maybe Jack _is_ trying to be sexy.

Knowing that he’s trying makes Bitty feel a little bold, a little naughty. “Jack,” he murmurs, “are you-- are you planning on doing something else with that hand?”

“Not yet…” Jack says. “Should I?”

Bitty gulps.

“Can I?”

 _Can I_? He’s asking Bitty’s permission and somehow that is just turning Bitty to _smoke_

“Only-- only if I can too.” He’s stunned at the teasing in his voice.

“Bits.” A pause, a gasp. Jack shifts on the bed, and his hand slides out of the frame. “When I get there--”

“Shh. Don’t. Jack.” Bitty’s got his hand on himself now, slow, carefully, because he feels like if he lets himself go he’ll be done in about thirty seconds. “Jack let’s just.. do this -- “

“I want to see you.” The words are almost a groan.

“Soon.”

“I know.” Jack’s face is so gorgeous right now, his chin tilted up, his brow pinched in the middle. Chest rising and falling as he breathes.

“Jack…” Bitty’s whole body is flushed, and his tongue feels loose. Words are tumbling from them. “Jack, you’re so… so handsome -- gorgeous -- I want---”

“Me too, _you_ too, Bits, oh, _God_ ,” the word hissed between tight lips. Jack’s expression is agonized.

Bitty isn’t much of a swearer, but he’s no saint either, and at the sight of that expression a spike of feeling surges through him and he hisses out a “ _Shit._ ”

They don’t take long. The energy between them is sizzling, like they’ve been pent up, and maybe they have. Last week wasn’t the most fun week of conversations, and then Jack was away. In a way they’ve had this release of tension coming for a good long time. And the anticipation of next weekend is spurring them forward, along with whispers and hisses and gasps and dazed, admiring looks at each other. The circle of want and anticipation gets into Bitty’s blood until he’s boiling over, then leaves him gasping for breath, messy and dizzied and so, so happy. He lies there, spent, staring at Jack through hooded eyes, wanting time to simultaneously stand still and fly past. “Soon,” he murmurs with what little breath he’s got left.

“Yeah.” Jack reaches out and touches the screen. “Soon.”

  
  


**Today**

The second session of camp starts with almost as much fanfare as the first. Natalia is the cutest little thing on two legs, and Louis is just two buckets of awkward. Bitty is on high alert keeping Teddy from terrorizing them both. But he has been telling Teddy about sportsmanship via hockey stories, and that seems to be helping a little bit. (“Now me and my friends, we get very sad when we lose a game, but we still shake hands with all the other players, even if we don’t like ‘em…”)

After camp, Bitty goes shopping with Mama for all the Fourth of July fixings they’ll need (they’ll go again later in the week for everything that needs to be bought fresh, but the baking supplies at least can be bought now.) Prior to that’s a long discussion of the menu, what’ll get cooked/baked when, and what ingredients need to be bought now or later. Bitty’s in tiptop form. This is his lifeblood: holiday baking, camp and Skype sessions with very naughty men who answer the phone half-clothed and are going to be in his kitchen before too long. Life is so good, Bitty can hardly _stand_ it.

At 8:30, faced with a smiling Jack, Bitty thinks he’s going to go absolutely out of his skin with happiness. When he thinks about that smile being a few feet away, touchable, within a few days? He can hardly handle it. Seriously. Things can’t possibly get better.

“What are you grinning about?” Jack asks.

“What are _you_ grinning about?” Bitty shoots back.

Jack purses his lips like he’s trying to hold back a laugh. “Check out the Falconers website,” he says.

“Oh! Is your picture up there? Is there an interview with you?”

“Go check it out,” Jack says.

“Oh, oh, okay. I have to minimize the call… um…” Bitty loathes making Jack’s face go away, but it’s worth it to switch over to his Web browser and have a look. Providencefalconers.com takes a while to load, but when it’s up, Bitty frowns. “Uh, what exactly am I looking at?”

“A T-shirt, right?” The video may be minimized, but Jack’s voice still carries over.

“Right, but it says Mashkov.”

“Click on it.”

It’s a little odd to have Jack giving him advice on how to use the internet, but whatever. Bitty obeys. After a few moments of spinning beach balls, the site for the Falconers store opens up. Bitty gives a little squeaking gasp.

_BE THE FIRST TO OWN ONE!_

A brown-haired model is standing with his back to the camera, looking over his shoulder with a huge smile. On his back is the name _Zimmermann_ and the number _1_ , in Falconers blue.

_Zimmermann jersey sizes XS-XXL $29.99_

“I’m ordering. I’m ordering, Jack, I’m ordering one _right now,_ ” Bitty says.

“Haha, wait a second,” comes Jack’s voice. “See on the left, where it says browse by player?”

“Oh. Oh, yes!” Bitty locates Jack’s name on the list (under Mashkov, Snow, and Martin he notes, but above Thurston) and clicks.

And the squeaking noise he makes then puts his previous gasp to shame.

There’s a toy. A little OYO sports toy. _Bitty can own a toy version of NHL player Jack Zimmermann. Who also happens to be his boyfriend_.

He stuffs his fingers in his mouth to keep from shrieking with laughter.

“Well?” Jack says. “Pretty neat, eh?”

“Pretty _neat_ \--- Lord! Put me in the ground, Jack, because I’m dead. RIP me, six feet under and pushing up daisies. Jack, it’s a _mini-you!_ ” Bitty bites his lip hard. “I’m going to buy six of them. One for here, one for the Haus, one for Faber…”

Jack’s laughing, and it’s such a pleasant sound Bitty actually trails off to listen to it more. He restores the Skype screen and gets a pleasant image of Jack red-cheeked and grinning. “Why, Jack Zimmermann,” he teases. “If I could show a picture of you right now to the boy I met two years ago.”

Jack nods. “Anyway, don’t buy them. I’m getting some comp ones, so I’ll give them to you when I see you in August.”

“Oh, yeah.” Bitty hasn’t been able to think about anything past this week’s visit. “I guess you’ll be coming up to Samwell during preseason. Oh, you should come up to the Haus for your birthday! I’ll be getting in at the very end of July, so I can make you a birthday pie. Or cake, if you’d prefer,” he adds with a curled lip.

“Actually,” Jack says softly, “I was hoping you might come visit me here.”

Bitty’s heart leaps. Jack’s said something about this once before, obliquely, but Bitty had forgotten about it. Now he remembers, though, with a heart-pounding rush. “When?”

“I thought maybe I could make you make a birthday pie in my kitchen,” Jack says. There’s a shy tinge to his voice. “Of course I’ll buy whatever you need to do it. Maybe you could help me stock up.”

“I-- oh, _gosh._ ” The thought of shopping for Jack’s kitchen, that beautiful poor empty kitchen that desperately needs filling, is pretty much the equivalent of winning the lottery. The stand mixer he’d buy for that thing! The adorable mixing bowls! “I-- I have to look at my calendar-- I have to be at the Haus for -- the tadpoles are coming in and--”

“But you wouldn’t mind?” And there’s that shyness again. It’s so unlike Jack, Bitty has to look at him and frown and blink.

“Of _course_ I wouldn’t mind, what kind of a question is that?” He can’t help but chide a little bit. Jack should know better.

“Well. You said you’re going to be busy and--”

“--and you want me to come and help you _shop_ for your _kitchen_ , Jack, if I were in the middle of finals I’d still take time out to do that. Honestly. It’s like you don’t know me at all.”

  
Jack grins. “Good. I think--” He looks around. “I think this place could use your touch.”

“I’m sure it could!” Bitty huffs.

“It was strange,” Jack says slowly. “Coming home from Boston. I didn’t feel like I was _home_. It’s not the Haus.”

Bitty nods. “I bet it’s going to feel strange for a little while,” he says. “It’s hard to make a place your own.”

“Yeah,” Jack says, “I think you would help with that.”

“Oh, don’t get me started! Honey, if you let me I will doll up that place like crazy for you. What you need are some accent pieces, just to start with, and then we can find matching colors to tie the place together and--”

“I mean, you.” Jack says bluntly. “You being here. Would make it feel like home.”

It says something, Bitty thinks later, that he doesn’t stop and blush and stammer at this. Two weeks ago, a week ago, he might have. But now he just smiles. He’s getting used to this side of Jack, the one who’s just as straightforward and artless as usual, but in a more tender direction. It’s Jack Zimmermann’s romantic side, and Bitty feels like he’s getting to know it, like he’s snuggling into a favorite, comfortable sweater. The warmth is familiar, but no less pleasant. “Aw, honey,” he says. “I can’t wait to come up. I’ll break in that kitchen for you, don’t you worry.”

“Good.” Jack half-laughs. “I can’t believe I miss hearing you singing pop songs.”

“Oh, well!” Bitty sits up straight, grinning. “If you miss it that much, I could always lay some tunes on you right now.”

“Bittle. It’s 9 p.m.” Oh, but Jack’s scowl is a thing of beauty.

“It’s _never_ too late for Beyonce, young man.”

“I have to be up at 5.”

“ _ALL THE SINGLE LADIES!”_

“Wait, that song’s Beyonce?”

“JAAAACK!!!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to thank Ngozi for the final panels of 3.6, which I found deeply… inspiring.
> 
> So technically Friday is July 3 which is the holiday, but I already set it up so that Jack was coming down on the morning of the 4th, so bah, this is an AU where the holiday is Monday instead. So sue me.
> 
> I had the seed of the germ of an idea the other day. What if, after the Skype Dates, I did The Providence Visits? It’d be similar, only weekly and with more porn. XD (This is not a promise, IDK if I could do it! But it’s a thought.)
> 
> I know no Beyonce. I am shame.
> 
> Nothing but fluff this time. A little seriousness next time, then hope for the final chapter.


	31. Chapter 31

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tuesday, June 30, and Wednesday, July 1, 2015.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for homophobia, homophobic slurs, and bullying, including an experience that borders on sexual assault.

**Yesterday**

Jack starts the conversation with, “So I have a nickname now.” 

“You do? At last?” Bitty gets a little gleeful thrill. “What is it? How’d you get it? Who gave it to you?”

“Hah. Tater did. He. Uh.” Jack’s face is some fantastic shade of rueful that Bitty wants to paint his room with. “He decided I’m now Zimmboni.”

Bitty stops breathing. “ _He what._ ”

“What?”

Bitty has seen death glares, but he’s never really been able to pull one off. He’s too nice, too personable and not nearly bitchy enough. But oh, Lord, he bets he’s got a pretty good facsimile going right now. His tone is totally flat. “Say it again. Oh, God, don’t. No. Do.”

“Um. ‘Zimmboni.’”

“Seriously?”

“Yeah. I told him I never had a nickname at school and he-- well.”

“ _Seriously?”_

“I take it you don’t approve.” Jack’s lips twitch.

“Jack, it’s _horrible_ ,” Bitty informs him, trying to keep a straight face. “You’ve got to lose it.”

“If it helps, the guys haven’t really picked it up yet,” Jack says. “I’m still just Zimmermann to them.”

“Good. Keep it that way,” Bitty counsels.

“I don’t think I can. Tater’s… loud.”

Something about that statement turns Bitty’s emotions in a different direction. “Hey, they treat you okay, right? You’re not getting -- they respect you, right?”

Jack looks slightly cross-eyed, like he doesn’t understand the question. “Yeah. No, everyone’s been great.”

“Good. Phew.” Bitty can’t say he was wearing a hole in the floor worrying about it, but somehow he’s really relieved.  Jack’s in a new town, in a new situation with all new people, and sometimes that… just doesn’t go the way you want it to.

Which reminds him.

“Hey, Jack?” he says shyly. “I know this is kind of out of nowhere, but… there’s some things about me I kind of want to tell you.”

“Oh?” Jack scoots in his chair, inching closer to the camera.

“Yeah. It’s kind of… my sob story.” Bitty feels a little ridiculous bringing it up out of nowhere, but he's been meaning to -- it just hasn't happened yet. “I mean, you told me all that stuff about Pars-- about what you went through, and I think it was really brave. And I want to be a little brave too. Although maybe you won’t think as much of me after I tell you.”

“I doubt that,” Jack says.

“Anyway... can I try? Do you mind?” Bitty scratches the shell of his ear with one finger.

“Go ahead,” is Jack’s quiet, even response. “I want to hear.”

His gaze is steadfast and clear, like a rope there for Bitty to grab onto and steady himself. He watches Jack watch him for a minute, slowly turning over the story in his mind. And then he just launches into it.

“So. Um. You know I was born here in Madison. Lived there until i was 11. I started figure skating in elementary school, and I was lucky enough to find a good coach. But she moved away when I was in sixth grade, and it was a good hour's drive to get to her.” He gives a soft, rueful laugh. “Coach tried to talk me out of it. Thought this was his chance to get me into something he thought was a real sport. He tried me on football, and that didn’t work real well. But you know me, I kicked up a fuss until I got my way, so eventually Coach gave in and he and Mama were stuck driving me there and back four times a week.

“So Mama started saying we ought to move. Get me closer. She was always so great about wanting me to do the things I wanted to do. Coach wasn’t so keen on it, but I remember Mama telling him it’d be a good idea if I got out of Madison, met some new kids, since I was growing up so fast and all. And I think he bought that line. Long story short, Coach applied for a job in Jonestown, a little bit closer to Katya, and we moved. That was the beginning of middle school, and… middle school wasn’t fun.

"Course, I didn’t know what was coming. I was all excited, like Mama said, to meet new friends. So I walked in on the first day of class and told my whole homeroom all proud that I was a figure skater and I moved here to be closer to my coach. And. Well. That was my first mistake, and it was a big one.”

Jack frowns minutely. Bitty figures he can tell what’s coming next.

“Yeah,” he concedes, “it was bad. Football team especially were pretty terrible to me. They started picking on me something fierce, and it wasn’t just a bunch of words. I got slammed against lockers a lot. Never knew when it was coming. I'd be walking down the hall and then suddenly, out of nowhere, _slam._ ” He sighs. “After a while I got pretty good at seeing 'em coming and dodging, though. But... “

He glances at Jack. That gaze is still steady on him. Bitty holds fast to it a moment, then goes on.

“There was one night, um… after a game. I thought I’d go to a football game, because, you know, new friends and fitting in and all that. I ended up waiting around in the hall after for Coach to finish up, and a couple of the guys were coming out of the locker room and... “ He takes a breath. “Well, they started saying things about me doing axels… only that wasn’t what they were saying.” It makes his stomach turn to even repeat it.

“Course, I didn’t get it, so I said yeah, of course I do axels, all proud of it too. And… well… they started throwing me around like a football, more or less. I ended up locked inside a storage closet. I screamed and hollered until I couldn’t anymore but they wouldn't let me out. They... they just left me there overnight.”

Jack’s face contorts. Just briefly, but it’s there - the look of shock and pain.

“Mama said Coach looked for me everywhere but inside. She was fit to be tied when I finally got home. Janitors found me the next morning, she said. I don’t remember. Guess I had a fever by the time they found me.” Bitty shivers. “Don’t know why, but I don’t remember much of it after getting locked in and shouting myself hoarse. Probably, I just don’t want to remember.

“Anyway, Mama and Coach both sat me down afterward. Coach told me to man up, not to let them push me around. And Mama told me I shouldn’t let anyone make me feel bad about who I am. And, I mean, it’s good advice, both of ‘em gave me good advice, but... it didn’t really work so well.”

“Bits,” Jack starts, but he doesn’t go on. The word itself is enough. It’s a punctuation mark, a breath at the end of a long sentence, and Bitty needs it. He lets it sink in, silent, a reminder that he’s still in the here and now.

“But!” he says when he’s gathered himself enough to go on. “It wasn’t all bad. I mean, I was close enough to Katya that I could go skate in the morning, then go to school, then come home and bake up a storm. Our house there had a nice kitchen, not as nice as our house in Madison, but nice enough. And gosh, I would just bake and bake, and all the bad stuff from school would float right away. And then the funniest thing happened.

“Mama started hosting these dessert parties with ladies from the local rotary club just to get rid of all the stuff I’d bake. She’d trot out her son the baker, and I'd tell them all about the recipes and the things I'd baked. And let me tell you, these ladies were just the best. I mean, they treated me like I was a little celebrity, which I loved. They asked me all kinds of questions about myself and my baking, and oohed and ahhed when I talked about figure skating, and they would always seem so delighted at every little word that came out of my mouth. And after a while they started telling me things, too. Little secrets, and gossip, and things in the news, and, well... I sort of became one of them. The Jonestown Ladies and Eric Bittle. We were all just the best of friends.”

There’s a soft smile on Jack’s face now. Bitty can feel himself going pink looking at it. Jack’s so invested in the story he’s telling. It’s flattering and humbling in all the best of ways, and it gives him strength to go on.

“I guess that’s when I started realizing I could be two different people. I could be quiet and keep to myself and try not to get slammed into lockers all day at school, but then I could come home and bake and skate and talk with the Jonestown Ladies. I found the place where it was okay to be me. It's funny, now that I think about it. I was so miserable and so happy at the same time. It just depended on the time of day.”

“School kept on being bad, though. I tried to fit in. I tried going out with a girl. I think I told you about her? But even that didn’t help. They still called me… things.

“Didn’t help that most of those things ended up being true.”

“Bits.” Jack almost barks the word. He’s frowning hard. “Don’t say that.”

Oh. Bitty didn’t realize he’d said it out loud. He finds himself shaking a little. “S-sorry, honey. Um, there’s one more really bad part of the story I want to tell you, but it can wait until tomorrow, maybe?”

“Whatever you want,” Jack says. “I can listen now, if you’d prefer.”

“N-no.” Bitty sighs. “Tomorrow, let’s wait ‘til tomorrow. I might need to bake another chocolate peanut butter pie to get through this.”

Jack smiles. “Whatever you want. I’ll be here.”

  
  


**Today**

Bitty does not end up making a peanut butter pie. But he does get to watch his campers do the most ridiculous relay race he’s ever seen. He laughs himself silly even as he’s cheering them on through the three-legged race into the wheelbarrow portion, and hallelujah, in the end his campers win! He laughs and cries and hugs them like they’ve just attained Olympic gold. It’s just the sort of shot in the arm he needs to carry him through what he expects will be a hard night.

“Okay,” he blusters at the beginning of their call that night. “Okay, I’m ready.”

But launching into the story this time takes a lungful of air and two clenched fists. Bitty squeezes his eyes shut and pushes himself back into the memory.

“So this was toward the end of eighth grade. I was prepping for the local tournament and Katya told me she thought I’d make regionals that year if I skated well. I was really excited, but I was practicing a lot. Before and after school. So I started bringing…” _Come on, Bitty, you can do this!_   “...bringing my skating costume with me in a duffel bag I kept in my locker. It just sat there all day, locked up, and I’d grab it on my way back out of school to head to the rink.”

“Well. I don’t know what happened. I must have not locked my locker one day. Because I got to the end of the day and I went to go get it and it was gone.

“I freaked out, I looked everywhere. I couldn’t think of what had happened to it. I called Katya, I cancelled my practice that day, and I spent like two hours after school looking all over the place for it. The gym, all my classrooms, the bathrooms. I was frantic.

“I was just about to give up, and I thought maybe, _maybe_ I’ll go check my locker one last time and…

And now he can see them. The long shadows at the end of the hall. The glare of the sunset through the windows. The moving shadow of one of the locker doors as it swings open.

“They were waiting. They were waiting for me to come back. And they had my bag by their feet and one of them was holding up my costume and….

“ _Hey,_ they said, _Hey, Eric. We found your f-_ ” His voice trembles. “ _Your faggot skater costume. Why don’t you try it on for us_.”

Jack takes in a sharp breath, but he doesn’t say a word.

Bitty closes his eyes. “The-- the next thing I know they’re all around me, and they’re trying to pull-- pull my shirt off and grab-- and pull my pants down and--”

And God, he’s there again, with big ugly hands on him and snickering voices. His costume flutters to the ground like a deflated flag, sequins catching the setting sun and reflecting red up into his eyes. He twitches, his body remembering the frantic jerks from side to side, the efforts to get free.

 _Breathe. Breathe. Tell the story._ “They. They weren’t trying to do anything really awful, just scare me, just freak me out. And-- like I said, I was good at dodging. I got out from in the middle of them and backed up against a locker and--”

_Slam!_

He winces. “The game changed, then. Now they were slamming me into the lockers again, like they did all the time, only there was a whole group of them and just me and no one else around. I’d pull away, I’d dodge one, and someone else would come at me from a different place-- slam me against the other side -- I -- I kept moving until I ended up in the corner--”

Cold metal on his back. Bruises blooming on his skin. And all through it, that laughter, burning at his ears.

“I didn’t have any place left to run. So I just -- I curled up into a ball on the floor. And they started kicking me then--”

Pain exploding through his gut, pain that he didn't think would ever end, but then the footsteps and _hallelujah_ …

“And then thank god, Coach came round the bend and caught them at it. I ain’t never seen him so mad…”

Bitty takes a moment, turns away from the screen, wipes the back of his hand across his face. There are tears, but he never felt them fall. God, he was right there again, in that place, that moment he’s worked so hard to leave behind. _It’s okay,_ he tells himself. _It’s all right. You got out of there. You ended up fine._ But for those few moments, it wasn’t okay and he didn’t know. So he takes time, takes breath, and lets himself settle back into a space where he can go on.

“Ended up in the emergency room that night. Just a bunch of bruises, but Mama insisted. We… we weren’t long for that town after that. They took me out of school, and, well, we were back in Madison right quick. I was glad to leave them behind, but I also had to pull out of the tournament. So the awful boys at school were gone, but so was my skating, and so were my Jonestown Ladies. I felt pretty alone.

“Back in Madison, things were better. Kids knew me from before, and it’s a smaller town, so everyone knows what everyone gets up to. So nobody messed with me. But I’d learned to keep my mouth shut by then, too.

“Course, by then I’d pretty much figured out that I was -- that those boys had been right about something. About me. What they said I was.  That was a hard one to get around. Took me, well, right up into college before I was ready to say it out loud. But. Anyway.

“I went back to skating after a while, cause I missed it so much. And I finally made Regionals, but something wasn’t the same.  I was there, and I was proud, and I loved skating, but.. something had just _changed._

“So, well, I decided maybe I’d try hockey instead. And that worked out all right.” For the first time tonight, he offers Jack a grin. “Don’t you agree?”

Jack stares blankly for a second, as though he’s forgotten how to speak. At last, he hums an assent and nods.

“But the thing was,” Bitty says, “it wasn’t just the figure skating I missed. I missed the Jonestown Ladies too, but I couldn’t go back to them. I missed having people to talk to that I could just be me. I mean, the ladies in Madison are nice too but like I said. I was… it wasn’t the same.

“But that was also when I started discovering people like me on the internet. And started feeling like maybe there still _was_ a place where I could be me and love the things I loved, only it wasn’t a place, it was online. That’s when I started my vlog. Because if I couldn’t talk to the ladies, I could at least talk to some strangers on the Internet about all those things.”

Light is returning to his heart now, as he pushes forward toward the present. “I gotta be honest, I never expected more than a few people would listen, But somehow or other -- people liked me. People watched me and they subscribed and I-- now I have a Twitter and people ask me questions about hockey and baking and my life and it’s pretty amazing.

“And then I started looking at colleges, and I found Samwell, and I just knew that was the right place for me. Oh, Lord, Jack, the day they offered me that scholarship I cried and cried. I kept thinking to myself, _I made it._ ”

And that’s the end of the story, isn’t it? Happily ever after? But it’s not. Not for Bitty, not for the thing he’s trying to admit to here, the reason he’s got to bare all this ugliness in the first place. Jack deserves to know who and what he is, really.  He fights down a shudder.

“Jack,” he says carefully, “I’m so thankful, I really am, for so much. For Samwell and for the team and for you.  But-- but it doesn’t change the fact that they were right. About everything. I don’t mean about being gay, even though they were right about that too. But-- I never did stand up to them. I let them get to me, and I let them stomp on who I was and make me ashamed, and sometimes I just feel like such a coward. Like I’m not… a real man.”

“That’s bullshit.”

Bitty takes in a soft breath. He didn’t expect -- he -- what -- what is Jack’s _face_ right now? “I-- um?”

Jack scowls harder and deeper than he ever has. For a fleeting moment Bitty’s afraid he’s actually angry with him. “It’s bullshit,” he repeats. “You’re one hundred percent a real man. They weren’t right about a damn thing.”

“I-- Jack?” Should Bitty be scared? Part of him wants to be. He knows what happens when Jack’s ire rises. But he’s never seen it rise _on his behalf_ before. He stays very still, like he’s cornered a wild animal, and watches, fascinated.

“It takes a real man,” Jack says, “to get on that ice and perform the way you perform. To push through your weaknesses the way you did. I was there, Bittle. I remember. The way you were when you started, and the way we played in those playoffs, in that final game. There was nobody but real men on that ice with me that day.

“And I’ll tell you something else. And maybe you haven’t noticed it, but I did. You are the heart of that team. Every last person on that team respects you, because you respect them. You treat each of them like they’re important, and like they matter. That’s leadership. It’s something I was working at every day. To try to be to that team what you were without even trying.

“So don’t let anyone make you believe for a second that you’re not a real man. You are. I don’t fall in love with fake--”

He stops.  Puts a hand to his mouth. Frowns.

Bitty can no longer feel anything below the waist. Just his throbbing chest and his sore throat and his swollen eyes and his _completely blank_ brain. Everything else is numb.

“Jack,” he starts.

Jack takes a few breaths. “Sorry,” he says. “I got angry.”

 _But you almost said_. _Just now._ Bitty wants to call him on it, but he also really doesn’t. Tonight’s conversation has him throbbing, and he doesn’t think he can stand any more revelations. “It’s okay,” he says. “It’s okay. Thank you for saying those things. It means a lot.”

“Bits.” Jack’s eyes are plaintive. “Thank you for telling me.”

“Hey, um... “ Bitty offers him a smile. “Let’s talk about something nicer tomorrow night, okay?”

“Okay. Sounds like a plan.”

Jack’s smile back is everything Bitty needs in this moment. Words can wait.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn’t know what story Bitty was going to tell me until I started this chapter. This is the story he told. Jonestown is a made-up town, but I did do some reading about rural Georgia while writing this chapter. (imfromdriftwood.com is a fascinating site!) 
> 
> Bitty’s bad experience is part of the genesis for his checking problem but it’s not the whole thing. We know he was averse to physicality before that, in his pee wee football league. So not trying to overwrite canon there.
> 
> I’m having a little trouble reconciling this experience with what we know of Bitty’s relationship with his parents as is, but I can’t erase the experience from my headcanon. I just… hope it doesn’t seem too inconsistent?
> 
> ONE MORE FUCKING CHAPTER, YOU GUYS. I’m hoping it will be a doozy. 
> 
> YOUR COMMENTS GIVE ME LIFE. Thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you x 9999999999999999.


	32. Chapter 32

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thursday, July 2, and Friday, July 3, 2015.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A reminder that this is a slight AU in which Jack comes in on the 4th and stays thru the 6th. Because I am a numbskull and wrote it that way. 
> 
> Tweets are by Ngozi, not me. I edited them slightly so they could be spoken out loud without Bitty having to pronounce his own unpronounceables.

**Yesterday**

“Do you know what's wonderful?” Bitty says. “Timehop is wonderful.”

“What's a timehop?”

Bitty rolls his eyes. “Did you know you texted me a year ago? I tweeted about it. And I quote. “ _Just got this text from Jack: “don’t forget to rest up” …Jack, why are you awake???_ ””

“You tweet what I text you?”

“Not everything. But yeah, some things.”

“Have you tweeted anything I sent you this summer?” Jack’s pupils go small, terrified little black beads. Bitty has to try not to laugh.

“You know, I haven’t tweeted anything this summer at all.” Bitty glances at his phone, sitting mute on the nightstand behind him. There’s a reason he hasn’t tweeted yet. That one beautiful tweet from May -- _This boy._ \-- still sits atop his timeline, and he’s not ready to dislodge it. “But last summer was when I first got my Twitter account. It was also right when I had that concussion, so I didn’t have much to do _but_ sit and tweet.”

“So you tweeted about me.”

“No. Well. Yes, but not much about you. I don’t know, what _did_ I tweet about you?” Impulsively, Bitty grabs his phone. He opens up Twitter and browses to his profile, then swipes his thumb upward on the screen to force older tweets to load. “Oh, this is going to take forever. I’m quite the chatterbox.”

“You don’t say.”

Bitty makes a face at him. “It’s only at April. My God, I talk a lot. Don’t you say it, mister.” He points a finger at the screen. Jack grins, and a Bitty’s heart does a ticklish tapdance that makes him want to wiggle. He swipes upward a few more times instead. “Only back to February. Aw, Jack, do you remember that time we had pie at midnight? You asked me how many followers I had.”

“We had a lot of pie at midnight,” Jack says, frowning.

“Oh, no, this was--” Bitty’s thumbing through the tweets. “This was when you wanted feedback on your photos. Ahaha! You had the one with the goose.”

“Oh, yeah. You said it was charming.”

“Mm-hm! I tweeted that, too.”  Bitty swipes upward compulsively, watching the tweets as they load and then scroll past. “That summer was so weird, though. You kept texting me to make sure I was resting and taking care of myself, but we weren’t even friends yet, not really.”

“We were friends.” Jack’s little frown is the cutest thing in the world. Bitty simultaneously wants to giggle at it forever and reach through the screen to smooth out those poor worry lines.

“Some definition of friends, maybe. You were being a good captain, but let’s face it, Jack, we didn’t really talk to each other like normal human beings until the end of the year.”

The scowl deepens. “We didn’t? I thought we did.”

Bitty leans back and regards him critically. “Well, no offense, Jack, but you don’t always know what normal human beings are like. I mean, now you do, but back then…”

“Hm.” Jack rubs a finger along the line of his chin. “Hmmm.” The scowl has taken a dark turn, and Jack’s not looking back at him anymore. His eyes are focused downward, as though he’s examining himself.

A wash of worry and regret assails Bitty. Maybe he’s said too much. “I’m sorry, Jack,” he offers. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”

“No. It’s all right.” He’s thinking so hard, Bitty can very nearly hear the gears grinding in his brain. ““I-- there may be some truth to that.  I don't--”

Oh, poor Jack. "No, no, honey. I just mean… I know relating to me was hard for you at first. I reckon I came on more or less like a tornado. You probably didn’t have the slightest clue what to do with me.”

“You were… frustrating at first,” Jack acknowledges.

“Yeah. I’ll bet.” Bitty remembers that first checking practices, Jack’s rant at him. _You can see the ice well, you got good hands… but you've got this stupid mental block about getting hit._

“It would have been easier if you were a bad player,” Jack says. His voice is rambling and soft, and it takes the edge off the words. “But you weren’t. You just had this one weakness. I’d played with guys who had weaknesses before. But yours pissed me the hell off.”

“Well, to be fair, it was one hell of a weakness.” Bitty can still remember blacking out, curling in on himself at the slightest hint of contact. He still feels the spike of fear now, but he's learned how to fight it down. Thanks to a certain French-Canadian who is currently walking with him down Memory Lane.

That very same French-Canadian currently has Analytical Face going, that expression he makes when he watches tape or runs through a play. “There were a couple of things going on,” he says. First of all, you were a damn good player when you weren't--”

“Freaking out?”

His eyebrow quirks. “I was trying to think of a better word for it.”

Bitty grins. “Hah! Don't bother.”

“But then there was you off the ice, too. I just didn't see how anything could make you faint. You were ... fearless.”

“Well. Now. I don't know about --”

“You were,” Jack insists. “And it annoyed the hell out of me. You were fearless everywhere except the rink. I took it personally. Of all the places you had to have a weak spot, it had to be in my game, on my team. It would have made my life so much easier if you had just been a bad player.” He half-smiles. “But you weren’t, you were good. There was that goal, in the game against Yale.”

Bitty’s skin prickles. He remembers the cold touch of the wind at the back of his neck, watching Jack’s shoulders hunch as he walked away into the dark. _It was a lucky shot._

“It wasn’t,” Jack says.

“What?”

Jack offers him a plaintive look, something that wants to be a smile but can’t quite make it. “It wasn’t just a lucky shot. It was a good play. You used your speed and your size well. You got to the right position, and you made it happen. It was good.”

Bitty slaps his right hand over his heart. “Jack,” he breathes. “I. Uh. I don’t know if you’ll believe me if I say it, but that means a lot. Even now. That means a lot.”

He’s not sure if Jack even hears him. “Then you got on my line, and… well. The coaches were right. You made me a better--”

“Oh, no.” Bitty jumps in. “Don’t you dare. That was all  you, Jack. I don’t know what it was, but something lit you on fire that spring, and I know better than to think it was me.”

Jack shakes his head. “I think maybe it was.”

The insistent sentiment makes Bitty nervous somehow. He deflects. “You’re just flattering me.”

“Bittle.” Hard eyes, no smile. “I don't flatter. Not when it comes to hockey.”

Bitty fidgets. “I suppose you don’t, at that,” he admits.

“I don’t.” Jack’s gaze is steady. “There was something that worked between us. You were always right where I needed you to be. We had good chemistry,” he adds with a soft smile. “Even then.”

He’s right, of course. Jack’s never not right about hockey. But there was something beyond that. Even when they didn’t even like each other that much -- although, when Bitty remembers well, Jack was starting to thaw out, even then -- something happened when they were on the ice together. A connection, one of those glorious intangibles that happens between the pounding beats of hearts and in tune to the scrape of skates on the ice. And sometimes it lasted -- beyond the moment of the play, bleeding into befores and afters and occasionally moments far removed from the heat of a game.

“Jack,” Bitty says, “do you remember that one time you stopped me after strategy and dragged me back so you could draw that one play on the whiteboard?”

Jack nods. “Yeah, that was a great play.”

“Can I tell you? I was so nervous. I thought you were going to chew me out because we lost the last time, and I was still new on your line. But you didn’t -- you wanted to run that play by me, and I remember being so excited. For the first time you were treating me like a real teammate.”

“Nobody but you could have made that play work,” Jack says. “You had the right speed for it. I remember thinking of it and thinking, it has to be Bittle. That was the first time I hoped they’d put us together again.”

“And it _did_ work!” Bitty remembers the moment of clarity when he realized the ice lay unblocked between them. It was only for a split second, but the two of them connected, moved, like they’d practiced it a thousand times. He remembers the pass, the shot, the roar that went up from the stands.

“It did.”

Jack’s eyes meet his. Well, they don’t quite _meet._ There’s a weird unmatched quality to eye contact over Skype, since to look at somebody you have to focus below the camera, so your eyes always end up a little downcast. But somehow or other it works. And, angles askew or not, they gaze at each other silently for a few giddy minutes. It feels like eye contact, even if it’s not exactly.

“Do you ever wonder,” Bitty says. “how on earth we got from there to here?”

“All the time,” Jack replies.

“Mostly, I’m just glad we got here,” Bitty says.

Jack doesn’t respond, just smiles, and Bitty’s smiling back. This moment -- if it were 48 hours later, this moment would lead to a kiss. Bitty can feel it, and his lips tingle with the anticipation.

He glances at his phone. He’s been thumbing absently down his Twitter timeline this whole time, and now he sees it’s scrolled all the way back to last summer. A tweet or two leap out at him, and he grins.

“Oh, gosh,” he says. “Do you remember how I was freaking out about getting into that food seminar? And you were all, _morning practice, morning practice?_ And then you came out with _oh, the coaches are thinking about changing the time, guess that means you can take that seminar_?”

“I might remember that,” Jack says, his lips quirking.

Bitty sees it then -- in the flash of amusement in Jack’s eyes, the way his cheekbones shift with the buoy of his smile beneath them. “ _Jack_ ,” he breathes. “Did _you_ do that?”

Jack shrugs.

“Don’t you shrug your shoulders at me young man _did you do that for me.”_ Bitty’s tone is flat, accusing.

“Hahah. It’s late, I should get to bed.”

“ _Jack._ You did, didn’t you? You did that for me?”

Jack leans toward the camera and winks. “I’ll tell you tomorrow.”

Bitty remembers the first time Jack said that. The very first time they Skyped. _If I were there right now…_    _I’ll tell you tomorrow._

He blushes, knocked mute by the memory, and in those wordless moments, Jack gives him a fond smile and hangs up for the night.

  
  


**Today**

It’s a camp day, and Bitty’s always working at five hundred percent when it comes to his campers, but today he’s maybe knocked down to three hundred percent. He’s not a Showtunes Gay, but it’s damn hard not to break into a chorus right now:

_I love you, tomorrow! You’re only a day away!_

At this point tomorrow, he keeps thinking, Jack will be flying here. Jack will be walking through the airport. Jack will be in his car, in his house. They’ll be sharing the same space. Breathing the same air. He’ll be able to reach out and touch Jack’s arm as they talk. Brilliant blue eyes will be sparkling at him from just a few feet away.

Bitty doesn’t allow himself to think beyond that. If he did, he’d melt into a red mess of not-safe-for-camp imaginings and his fellow counselors would have to rustle up a mop and bucket to carry him home in.

When he gets home, he loads up his Twitter again and laughs his way through a year of memories. He copies a few particularly amusing tweets into his notes. It amazes him to think of how different his two years at Samwell have been from each other. Both wonderful, in their own way, but different. He laughs at his frogs’ travails, remembering being in their same spot. Just a year of experience with the machine that is Samwell Men’s Hockey, the Haus and all its foibles, the institutions known as Shitty Knight and Jack Zimmermann -- it provides a kind of perspective. Bitty’s proud of how he’s been able to take the frogs under his wing, and he hopes he’s protected them from some of the rough edges he had to navigate in his freshman year.

But that’s not all that was wonderful about this past year.

He gets a thrill, when he calls at 8:30, to find Jack standing at his computer, a duffel bag in his chair. As they talk, he stuffs T-shirts and jeans and other odds and ends into it. Bitty advises him to bring more shorts. “Honey, you don’t _know_ how hot it gets down here. Considering you can wear shorts when it’s 30 degrees out, you sure as heck won’t want to be sweating in jeans here.”

“Fair enough.” Jack nixes the jeans and moves across the room to rummage through his dresser for another pair of shorts. Bitty deeply appreciates the view of him walking away.

“So,” he says. “This is our last Skype date. For a few days, at least. Feels like the end of an era.”

“You think?” Jack doesn’t seem all that moved by the concept.

“Well, yeah.” Bitty searches for words to describe the feeling. “Think of it this way. We’ve done all of this dating without actually being in the same room. We had that one moment at graduation, then -- it’s been all virtual. All of our talks and our --” he waves a hand and blushes -- “and then tomorrow we’re breaking that streak.”

“I’m about ready to break it,” Jack says, glancing at Bitty with serious eyes.

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I am, too. It just… it feels important. This conversation.”

In response, Jack returns to the desk. He lifts the duffel off his chair and sits down. “Okay,” he says. “Let’s have an important conversation.”

His smile is a challenge. Bitty struggles to find a way to meet it.

He grabs his phone. “Oh, so I was reading back in my Twitter. You know, we hung out a lot this year. More than I remembered. I guess because we were living across from each other so I got used to seeing you all the time, but we did a lot of hanging out outside the Haus, too. Here, let me read you some of these.”

Opening his notes app, he reads, amusement touching the edges of his words.

_“Sitting in the Norris library with Jack. Trying to do an essay response for food class…and why am I tweeting under the table._

_“oh god, so Jack just went to use the bathroom and tossed a note on my laptop. Yes I’m live-tweeting this; my life is not exciting._

_“it’s in french OF COURSE_

_“translation: “write your essay response” oh Lord._

_“Okay, he’s back. I left a note on his backpack._

_“I’ve never seen Jack have to stifle a laugh before. #NoteGameStrong”_

Jack stifles another laugh now. Bitty treasures the motion -- the twitch of his lips, the way he purses them afterwards, whole face drawing inward to hide it. “It was a good note,” Jack says when he’s got control of his face again. “Terrible French, but a good note.”

“What was it again? _Excuse moi Monsieur Capitan, je suis trying to write le response du essay._ ” Bitty puts on his most ridiculous French accent, just to try to make Jack laugh again.

“Capitan is Spanish,” Jack informs him, grinning.

“Shut up, you’re not supposed to know Spanish too. That’s not fair. Two languages is enough.”

“Haha!” Jack finally breaks, the laugh bursting from his lips with force. He shoves a fist in front of his face to keep it under control. Bitty’s heart leaps. That laugh, that near-shouting laugh from Jack of all people! What a fantastic thing, to inspire that noise out of this man. This wonderful, ridiculous man whose smiles have grown wider and happier over the two years Bitty’s known him, who has learned to laugh in ways that make Bitty’s whole chest feel like it’s full of fizzy soda.

His cheeks grow hot and he scrolls along to keep from saying something embarrassing. He alights on another fun bit of history in November. “Jack, you were a menace. Listen, this is before Thanksgiving.

“ _There has to be something in the bylaws about how much a captain can chirp you!! GO TO YOUR ROOM JACK_

“ _THERE SHOULD BE SOMETHING IN THE BYLAWS ABOUT UNWANTED ROUGH HOUSING_

“ _well jack’s in a good mood. my hair isn’t”_

Jack is biting his lip again, grinning hard. Bitty eyes him with suspicion. “Seriously, Jack, what _was_ all that about? Usually when I get manhandled like that, it’s Ransom and Holster.”

“I suppose I was just feeling playful,” Jack says.

“And since when do _you_ feel playful? I mean. I’m not complaining. But I _was_ complaining. I didn’t even think you knew what a noogie was, much less ever feel the urge to give one.”

“Your hair was too neat. It needed help.”

“Since when do you give a Fig Newton about my hair?”

“I like your hair,” Jack says, and his gaze is so soft Bitty gets embarrassed. He flushes and looks back down at his notes.

_That moment when someone calls you their friend for the first time._

Bitty doesn’t repeat that one to Jack. He just tucks it into his heart like a beloved momento. He’d run headlong into Jack and the Falconers GM who’d been courting him, and Jack had said to her, “This is my friend, Eric Bittle.” Looking back, Bitty thinks he should have understood the frantic vibrations of his heart at the sound of the word. But at the time, he’d only marveled at the fact that Jack, of all people, had introduced Bitty as his friend. How far they’d come since those first uncomfortable stares.

Then again, not everything has been about romance with them. There’s real growth, too, in just becoming friends, acknowledging it, settling into the new, comfortable dynamic where they could stay up late and talk about just about anything. All that had to happen before this did, Bitty thinks. It reminds him of what he told Jack on a Skype date not so long before this one: Everything happened just as it was supposed to happen.

“Bittle,” Jack says as the silence drags on. “I was thinking about your question from last night.”

Bitty’s head snaps up. “Hm?”

“Last night, you asked, how’d we get from there to here?”

“Oh. Oh, yeah.” The question had been rhetorical, but if Jack’s going to answer it, Bitty's not about to stop him.

“And just, listening to those -- to your tweets, and thinking about all of that. I suppose the best answer I can think of is, we grew into it.”

Bitty catches his breath. That’s just what he’d been thinking. Different words, but the same concept. He and Jack have been growing together all this time. Like vines, or shadows cast by facing windows as the day grows longer. They started in their own corners, but they've crept together over the passage of time until they could touch, meet, merge.

“Yeah,” he starts, but Jack has more to say.

“I grew … a lot, because of meeting you. Not just you. Samwell, and people like Shitty, and having this team. After everything that happened, I needed it. I needed to trust people, and I needed a home.   

“But I also needed ... something else. And they couldn’t -- it was you. Whatever I was missing, it was in you.”

“Jack.” Bitty’s blushing hard. He doesn’t know what to do with a statement like that, how to take it. He’s just _him_ , he’s Bitty, he’s not the be-all and end-all of anybody’s life. Besides, Jack has it all backwards.

He’s still looking for the words to say it when Jack goes on. “All those times you tweeted about. In the library and in the Haus, when we were.” He frowns. “ _Together_. I didn’t know it, but it meant something to me. You turned me into the kind of person who could give noogies.” Aside from the amused note in his voice, his pronunciation of the word is just a little funny, a little foreign. Bitty loves it.

“You better not give me noogies tomorrow,” Bitty chides. “I’ll sic my mother on you.”

“Bits. I’m trying to be serious.”

“I know. Um. Sorry.” Bitty tries to be quiet. It goes about as well as it usually does. Words burst out within another second. “But Jack, it was -- it was the same for me. You were what I was missing. I came to Samwell and I was still scared of so much, but you were there and helped me face my fears and you were such an inspiration, to play with and just to be around. You were so focused, and you know I’m terrible at focus but you made me want to be better at everything. And I didn’t think -- I didn’t think I even knew how to feel all the things you made me feel until you did, oh Lord, that doesn’t make any sense -- I -- Jack, all those times we were hanging out and going for coffee and talking all night, I was _dying_ inside because here was this man that I couldn’t get enough of, and he looked at me like I was _somebody,_ but he was going to graduate and I thought I was never gonna see him again.”

It’s so strange, to be spitting all this out in these final seconds before they’re going to see each other again, but the finality of this moment is weighing Bitty down like a boulder on his back. They’ve been baring their souls, slowly and methodically, night after night. After this, after tonight, something changes in their relationship again. They’ll have had time in each other’s presence, in each other’s space, as boyfriends. The communication won’t be gone, but it will no longer be alone. And it just feels right to say all of this now, before they meet again face to face.

“You’re going to see me again,” Jack says softly. “You’re going to see me tomorrow.”

Bitty should chirp him mercilessly for stating the obvious. But it feels _so damn good_ to hear. He nods, his eyes shutting tight to squeeze back the sensation of rising tears.

“But I remember that feeling,” Jack says. “That day, I came up the stairs and looked into your room and you were gone, and I remember thinking I was too late. It … it wasn’t a good feeling. I remember thinking to myself, I have to go down to Providence now, but I’m going to be useless there. I didn’t do the thing I needed to do _here_.”

Bitty’s heart swells with compassion. He felt the same way, standing there folding Chowder’s sweaters, trying to make something of a day he was sure had been ruined. Tidying Jack’s old room had been a last-ditch attempt at being productive, but it had felt so futile. With Jack gone, what could he do?

“But then you were there.”

Pink dots of color rise in Jack’s cheeks. His eyes are wide, pupils fattening, and Bitty can feel the look like a touch. Jack is looking at him like -- well, like nobody’s ever looked at him before.

“I knew … so much, then,” Jack says slowly. “What I wanted. How I felt.”

“And how-- how did you feel, Jack?”

Jack smiles. “Like everything finally made sense.”

Bitty bites his lip hard. He’s not going to cry. But oh, oh, Lord, he’s going to say it. The word’s rising up from his chest faster than he can stop it. Everything from the past year is swimming inside him, an ocean of turbulent memories freshly stirred up. All adding up to one word that won’t be kept down a moment longer.

“Jack,” he starts, “I -- I think I’m--”

“Shh. Bits.”

Jack’s lifted a finger to the screen. Toward the camera, so Bitty can see it, can see the glow of his smile behind it. He shushes, cheeks flaming, eyes wet.

“Tell me tomorrow,” Jack says.

Bitty opens his mouth, takes in a breath of air, tries to speak.

“And I’ll tell you, too,” Jack goes on. “Tomorrow.”

He touches his finger to his lips, then lifts it again.

Bitty nods. He echoes Jack’s movement, lifting two fingers to his lips, then raising them toward the camera.

"See you tomorrow," he says.

Then he smiles and, with his other hand, reaches out to end the call.

THE END

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WHAT THE FUCK, TIPPY. THEY NEVER EVEN MET. Sorry. But like I said, I accidentally turned this into an AU where Jack arrives the morning of the 4th. Besides, it’s called the Skype Dates, not the Skype Dates and then Stuff That Happens in Madison! It wouldn’t fit for me to write them meeting. Not in this fic. :)
> 
> BUT OK, IF WE CAN IGNORE THAT …. WOW, I’M DONE!
> 
> This has been a challenge and a joy to write. My first thank you has to go to elizajane, who created the Can’t Hardly Wait challenge that has been the bane and blessing of my existence through this past month and a half. Hon, I owe you so much. Thank you for inspiring me and pushing me to create. I am going to miss writing every day, I have to say!
> 
> I want to thank my husband for his endless patience and support throughout this whole thing. If you can believe it, during the process of writing this, we’ve been buying a house and moving. We are completely moved in as of yesterday, and he’s done tremendous amounts of work and allowed me the time I needed to complete each chapter on time. He is the best and I happily write these thank-yous from the staircase of our new home.
> 
> I would also like to extend a special thank you to the Blanket Fort. You know who you are and you know I love you.
> 
> But my #1 thanks goes to each of you, the readers, and most especially those of you who have had the spoons and the magnanimity to provide comments and feedback through this whole process. You’ve kept me focused, course-corrected me where I needed to be corrected, and kept my enthusiasm for this project riding high even when I thought it might kill me. It’s thanks to you that this has been such a sublimely rewarding experience. I only hope I have brought it to a somewhat satisfying conclusion. 
> 
> And of course, special thanks to Ngozi Ukazu, who created a world and characters that have reignited my passion for writing and brought me joy absolutely every single day since they first crossed my path.
> 
> Onward to Madison.. and then, maybe, to Providence!


End file.
